Among the Stars: Part Two - Far From Home
by The Lord of Chaos
Summary: The transition from Cadet to Paladin is rough and no one (except Lance) feels ready for the coming war. Yet fate's brought them together and failure's not really an option when none of them ever want the Galra to ever get around to taking over the Earth. Unfortunately, they've all got their own baggage to work through if they want to be able to become the saviors of the galaxy.
1. Fake It Till You Make It

A/N: So I'm back to school, and I won't be keeping the same update rate I had for the last story, though I might be dropping a class (Just for you). Thanks for tuning in, though. Part two is going to follow the first few episodes of canon with my own twist. Part three is going to be a major divergence. I really hope you like it.

* * *

Fake It Till You Make It

Lance couldn't believe it. They'd won? The ship had tried to follow them instead of continuing its course for Earth. If they were just looking for this Voltron thing, then that meant they'd leave Earth alone. Which meant that Lance had just saved the Earth. His family was safe! Compared to that, being the first human to pilot a ship out of the solar system was small potatoes, but he had that feather in his cap as well, and now he was walking on an alien planet that no human had ever explored before. Lance was a freaking movie star. He was an action hero. This was his life now. He had an awesome spaceship. He had a crew. He was out in the far reaches of space and who knew what was going to happen next. All Lance knew was that whatever it was, it was going to be awesome.

The Castle was huge, and Lance could just imagine all the cool stuff that was going to be inside. He supposed there would be aliens. He eagerly sprung forward towards the castle, just barely mindful of Shiro's admonishment to stick close. The doors opened for them and they stepped inside. There was a grand hall and the lights turned on to greet them.

"That area over there's lit up," Pidge said.

There were a few hallways that exited the hall they were in, but only one of them was lit, so Lance charged on. So far there hadn't been any aliens, but eventually they found themselves in another large room, though this one wasn't quite as big as the hall they'd previously been in. The lights here turned on and Lance noticed a series of circles in the floor arranged in an arc. Two of them lit up and suddenly there were pods coming out of them.

"Oh snap," Lance said.

"Uh, guys, I think this is the part where we all get killed by facehuggers," Hunk supplied.

The pods were about seven feet tall and about big enough around for them to be able to fit a person. Sure enough-

"Guys, there's people in there," Lance said.

Suddenly the one on the left opened with a hiss of escaping mist and suddenly someone was falling out. Lance darted forward and caught the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen in his arms. She looked human, besides the colorful markings below her eyes. That was when Lance realized that if he was in an action movie, then this was his love interest.

"What?" the woman asked. "Where am I? Who are you?"

The first thing he said to her had to be smooth.

"The name's Lance, and you're right here in my arms." Nailed it. That was when he saw the crown. He was holding an alien princess in his arms!

"What's wrong with your ears?" she asked.

"My ears?" he asked.

"They're hideous," she exclaimed.

Lance brought a hand up to the side of his head to feel his ear at the same time he noticed the pointed elflike ears of the woman in his arms. That was when the princess twisted around and grabbed a hold of his other ear and wrenched it as if she were trying to rip it off of his head. He let out a horrendous yelp that did not belong in an action movie staring Lance Sanchez and suddenly he was on his toes with his arm wrenched behind his back.

"Who are you people? What are you doing in the castle of lions? Where is King Alfor?" she asked.

"We mean you no harm," Shiro said. "We were brought here by a blue lion. We think it's called Voltron. We don't really know anything else."

"The Blue Lion brought you? Where is her Paladin? And how were you allowed to get this far without an escort?"

"There's no one else here," Shiro said. "None that we saw. We don't know who King Alfor is. Can you tell us who you are?"

Suddenly the princess let go of Lance's ear and shoved him forward away from her.

"I am Princess Allura of the planet Altea. How can you not know who King Alfor is, and this castle can't possibly be empty," Allura said. She walked over to some sort of control console and a holographic screen lit up over it.

Suddenly the other pod thing opened up and a man stumbled out.

"Intruder," he shouted, looking right at Lance. The man darted forward but Lance was not about to put up with another ear wrenching and dodged to the side, like a pro.

"Whoah there," Lance said as the man stumbled past him.

"Keep an eye on them, Coran," Princess Allura said.

"This one's just lucky I've got a case of the old deep sleep knees," Coran said.

"Oh yeah?' Lance rejoined. "Well-"

"This can't be," Princess Allura said, distress replacing the cold authority that had previously been in her voice.

"What's wrong?" Coran asked, and for the first time Lance realized that the whole time these aliens had been speaking their lips didn't match what Lance was hearing.

"We've been asleep for ten thousand pheebs," Allura said. "There's no one else in the castle besides us here."

"No," Coran said, sounding shocked. "That's not possible." He stepped up besides the princess and looked at the screen. "We should have been woken up long ago, as soon as a new Paladin was chosen."

The two aliens looked over at the five humans.

"Which one of you piloted the Blue Lion?" Princess Allura asked.

Lance raised his hand. "That would be me," he said.

The two aliens looked at him as though they were weighing his soul. Did anyone say 'chosen one?'

* * *

Inside the castle, Keith was haunted by a sense of familiarity and wrongness. He knew he had walked these halls before, but he also knew that they shouldn't be empty. The castle seemed to be waking up as they walked through; dark hallways lit up and where there had previously been empty silence there was now a quiet hum of activity in the background. When they entered a large chamber, he had a sense of anticipation, but this room too was empty. Like everything else, though, the room soon came alive.

Two pods rose out of the floor, and even with all of the deja vu Keith had been dealing with since he'd first seen the Blue Lion, he was still surprised when one of them opened and a mostly human looking woman tumbled out and into Lance's arms. He was able to ignore Lance's shameless and ill timed flirting only because he felt shaken to his core, because he knew her. He couldn't remember her name, or anything about her, really, but the sense of familiarity, that he had seen her before was a certainty. He thought there was a semblance of a memory of a giggling little girl running through the halls of the castle, but it was so distant it must have been millennia ago which didn't make sense. For him to have such a weak memory of her she would have to be far far older than she had any business being.

He didn't miss when she asked about King Alfor. So the name that had come to him when he'd seen the castle was definitely significant.

The other pod opened and another vaguely familiar alien stepped out and Lance continued to act the fool. The revelation that the two aliens had been in stasis for ten thousand of some unit of time made things make a lot more sense, and the knowledge that he was standing before people who had likely known him in his previous life had him feeling oddly scared. He'd hoped hearing their names would jog his memory, but neither Allura nor Coran were anything more than just a vague feeling.

The two aliens quickly got over their own shock for realizing that they had been in stasis for so long, and quickly got to business.

"What were you doing in there?" Pidge asked.

"The Galra attacked our home," Allura said. Alarm bells started ringing in Keith's brain at the mention of the aliens that had killed Lance in their past life.

"We were able to escape," Coran said. "But there was too much uncertainty. Voltron would rise again, we knew that much, but we didn't know when. King Alfor was able to link the princess to Voltron, so it was necessary that, well, that she would be around when the time came. We just didn't realize that it would be this long. Voltron's never gone so long without choosing new Paladins."

"Altea's gone, Coran," Allura said. "Where did everyone else go?"

"The others were sent to make sure the lions would be where they needed to be to be safe from Zarkon and to be ready for when their Paladins were ready."

"Zarkon?" Shiro asked. "I remember now. I was his prisoner."

"Impossible," Allura said. "How could he still be alive?"

"I don't know," Shiro said. "But he was looking for Voltron. The Galra were in our solar system looking for it when I was captured."

"Maybe it's a name that gets passed down?" Lance suggested.

"Who is Zarkon?" Hunk asked.

"Zarkon is the emperor of the Galra," Allura said. "He is an enemy of all free people. He's looking for Voltron because it is the only thing that could stand in his way. It is far more powerful than anything created by mere technology. The Blue Lion is but one of five that combine to form Voltron."

"You make it sound as if it is something non-technological," Pidge said sounding put out. "Which, first of all, no, and second of all, that lion looked very mechanical to me."

Allura shook her head. "The lions were created by ancient Altean Alchemists," she said. "A fusion of magic and science that has protected the galaxy for millennia."

"Well I don't know how long a pheeb is, but I'm pretty sure Voltron hasn't been doing that for a long long while," Keith said testily. "Because we just had to lead a Galra cruiser away from Earth." And because Keith and Lance have had to fight them again and again in past lives.

"Something must have gone wrong," Coran said.

Allura shook her head. "This is fate," she said. "Whatever has happened, this was the ordained time. These are the five Paladins of Voltron before us."

"Are you sure?" Coran asked.

"We're not Paladins," Pidge said.

"I'm just a cadet," Hunk added.

"They arrived together, the five of them and one of them the new blue Paladin. I can feel it," Allura said. "It would be easy to test their quintessence."

"Quintessence?" Pidge asked.

"The force of life," Allura said. "It runs in all of us. It's what powers Voltron. Alteans are sensitive to it. I, myself in particular, am very in tune with my quintessence and I can sense it in others."

"So how are you going to test this quintessence?" Hunk asked. "This doesn't involve probes does it?"

"No, it's non-invasive," Allura said. "If you'll allow me?" She gestured towards Pidge.

Pidge stepped forward hesitantly. Allura brought her hands up to the sides of Pidge's head.

"Yes," she said, smiling. "So much like Trigel, the last Paladin of the green lion. You have a curious personality, and an analytical way of approaching problems, but when you act you act boldly."

"Uh, sure?" Pidge said.

She moved on to Hunk. "Yes," she said, looking fond and sad at the same time. "So much like him. I can not wait to see the Paladin you become. You will be the Paladin of the yellow lion. Caring and selfless, you will be the heart of Voltron."

"Me?" Hunk asked, sounding incredulous.

She moved on to Shiro. "Similar, but different," she said, almost sounding relieved. "Strong and decisive, you will be the leader of Voltron, you will pilot the black lion." She frowned. "Your arm."

"Something they did to me when I was their prisoner," Shiro said.

The princess nodded and then she moved on to Keith and he tensed up remembering that she had known the previous Paladins, his previous self. She froze when she placed her hands on Keith's head. "Exactly like him," she said softly, staring Keith in his eyes before her own darted towards Lance. "You will be the Paladin of the Red Lion, you rely on instinct, often the first to act," she said, before walking back to stand besides Coran.

"What about me?" Lance asked. "Don't you want to feel my quintessence?"

"We already know you were chosen by the Blue Lion," Allura said.

"So that's it?" Hunk asked. "We're all supposed to just be Paladins now?"

"I can't tell you all that you are Paladins," Allura said. "Except for Lance here, who has already been chosen. The lions choose their Paladins. Lance was chosen by the Blue Lion. No one can choose for them, but each one of you feels distinctly like the Paladins of old. I sense that you each have the qualities that each lion searches for. This is fate. Why else would you all show up at the same time, brought by the Blue Lion. The galaxy has been waiting for ten thousand pheebs. Zarkon's time is over. Voltron will see to it, though I shudder to think of the destruction he's wrought while we've slept."

"Shiro said they destroy worlds," Pidge said.

Shiro was right.

"Where are the rest of the lions?" Keith asked before they could go down that path.

The galaxy needed saving, it seemed, and they were to be the five new Paladins of Voltron. A holographic image of five lion's lit up and Keith's eye caught on the red one. He glanced over at Lance. They would be Paladins together. They would fight together. Yet in the brief time they'd been together, they'd already argued at least five times, and Keith knew that Lance hated him as much as he always had. They would work together, but they wouldn't be together.

The quest was on then to find the remaining lions. Allura was linked to Voltron and she was able to locate all of them except for the Red Lion. Which tracked with Keith's life so far. Shiro's lion was already in the castle in a chamber that wouldn't open until the other four lions were present, so he was going off with Pidge to get his lion (her lion?), while Lance took Hunk to get his. Keith wanted to go with them, but his lion was unaccounted for, and he was supposed to be ready at a moment's notice to go find it.

"Easy peasy," Lance said. "We'll be back before you know it, Princess."

"Well do try to be quick," Allura said. "I'll only be able to hold open the wormhole for so long."

"Princess," Coran said urgently. "A Galra ship in our sector's just changed course. It's heading straight for Arus."

"Where's Arus?" Pidge asked.

"This is Arus," Allura said. "How long do we have?"

"They're about a hundred light pheebs away, so I'd say about two quintents."

"Hold up, hold up," Pidge said. "Your units of time aren't translating. We actually need to know how long that is."

Pidge and Coran consulted for a bit (talking about Cesium atoms for some reason) while Shiro asked the Princess about the castle's defenses.

"Okay," Pidge said. "We've got about fifty three hours until they get here," Pidge said.

"Plenty of time to get the yellow and green lions," Allura said.

"Alright," Shiro said. "You all know what you're supposed to do, so let's go."

Keith didn't have anything to do, and they probably weren't going to find the Red Lion while the others were gone. Keith should have been going with Lance. The whole thing had him set on edge. How they had been found so quickly, Keith didn't know, but he was going to be ready when they got there. Not that he really had to do much. Keith did not do well being left to his own devices. The two Alteans set about getting the ten thousand year old castle ready for an attack so Keith was basically left to stew away while he waited. At least the planets everyone else were going to were supposed to be peaceful, so hopefully Lance would be fine.

* * *

Hunk had signed up for the Galaxy Garrison hoping for a slot on the moon for a year or two before he could take a job back on Earth. Getting stuck in the flight engineering program had been a big setback that had done nothing good for his nerves or his stomach, but at least the Galaxy Garrison wasn't at war. Hunk had signed up to be an engineer. Now he was supposed to be a Paladin in a space war he'd never even heard of.

"Oh my god, Hunk, this is so freaking cool," Lance announced as he settled into the pilots chair of his lion thing.

"We just got drafted into a war," Hunk said, finding that there was a fold down chair in the aft of the cabin. He strapped himself in and no sooner than he had than Lance was taking off.

"Dude! We're going to save the Galaxy," Lance announced excitedly. "Weren't you listening back there? We've been chosen, out of everyone in the galaxy, to be these Paladins and use the most powerful weapon ever and we get to fight the evil empire."

"Wow, you drank the Kool-Aid really quickly," Hunk said.

"What's cool-aid?" Lance asked. "Does that mean I'm really cool?"

"It means you bought into this really fast," Hunk said. "Don't you have any questions? What are we signing up for? Why us? Why me? We're supposed to be on Earth, finishing the program at the Garrison."

"We just saved Earth," Lance said. "You heard the princess, it's fate, that's why we're here."

"I don't believe in fate," Hunk said. "If I had any fate it would be to play with cool tech in a Galaxy Garrison facility."

"Well now you get to take cool alien stuff apart," Lance said.

That was actually an interesting proposition and Hunk for the first time really started looking around the cockpit.

"And you'd better not think about taking apart my lion," Lance said.

"I'm not going to take apart the ancient alien spaceship that's currently separating me from the cold vacuum of space," Hunk said.

"You do want to save the galaxy, don't you?" Lance asked.

"You know, that's never actually been on my to-do list," Hunk said. "Funnily enough, I never thought to myself, 'hey, let's go fight in a space war.'"

"Okay, but you want the galaxy to be safe, right?"

"Well, yeah," Hunk said. "In the abstract sense. Not in the, I must fight for the honor of Greyskull, sense. Which just goes to show that this whole chosen/fate stuff is bonkers. The cabin light's gone out and you need your engine taken apart, cleaned and put back together in the dark? I'm your chosen one. You want fifty-one ideas on how to improve the hyperflex inductor? I'm your chosen one. You want someone to save the galaxy from an evil empire? I'm definitely not your guy. I'm the last guy, after you've exhausted all other options, and then you say, 'well I guess you're all we've got,' and then I go out and get blown up in my first battle… Now, you want someone to take Voltron apart piece by piece and figure out how this 'Alchemy,' works? Yeah, I'll be your guy. First though let's just take Voltron to Earth. Allura and Coran get a nice new planet to call home, we figure out how Voltron works, make a bajillion of them, and they can be piloted by someone other than me as they go out and save the galaxy."

"Well that would make a terrible movie," Lance said.

"Lance, this isn't a movie," Hunk said.

"I know that," Lance said. "Hey though, did you see me with the princess?"

"Yeah?" Hunk asked.

"I was super smooth," Lance said.

"She almost ripped your arm off," Hunk said.

"She surprised me," Lance said. "Besides, this is like the classical opening of an action/romance. We're not supposed to get along at first."

"Uh huh," Hunk said. "You realize she's an alien right? Completely different norms and customs. Even if that was 'smooth' on Earth, there's no telling what it is in Altean."

"Hey," Lance protested. "I think I know what I'm doing here. Speaking of here, we're here. Get ready to get your lion."

"We're here?" Hunk asked. "What about the wormhole?"

"We went through it while you were looking around my cockpit like you wanted to do terrible things to my lion," Lance said.

You'd think there'd be some way to tell that they'd gone through a wormhole if you weren't looking out the front screen. Sure enough, when Hunk looked out, there was a planet that was getting bigger and bigger very rapidly. Next thing he knew, they were ripping through the atmosphere.

"Two alien planets in one day," Lance said. "Guess you'll be the first human to walk on this one though. We're coming up on your lion."

Hunk was still hoping that it most definitely wasn't his lion.

"Merde," Lance said. "Do the Galra have a theme, because that looks like their tech down there."

Sure enough, there were structures on the surface that definitely looked reminiscent of the Galra ship they'd seen that morning. Purple and grey hues with curves that ended in a point. Suddenly, Lance jerked on the controls and the lion made an unholy motion.

"Shots fired," Lance said. "Not sure if they're Galra, but they're definitely not friendly."

"Well we tried," Hunk said, a hand over his now roiling stomach. "Guess we have to go back empty handed."

"We need that lion," Lance said. He pulled back on the controls and the lion shot up into the sky. He then turned his head to one of the panels. "It looks like your lion's underground, there's a tunnel system like the one Blue was in, aaaaaaaand, it looks like there's no life signs down there. Okay, I'm going to drop you off and keep the guys on the surface there busy. You get your lion and we'll hightail it out of here. Okay, buddy?"

"Not okay," Hunk said. "You want me to do what?"

"I want you to go back to the entrance and be ready for a rapid exit," Lance said, suddenly serious. "Once you're out, I'll stay stationary for a moment to give you cover as you go into the tunnel, and then I'll make sure nothing follows you in. Find your lion, get in, then get it to the surface. If it's anything like Blue, it won't have any trouble getting through the rubble."

"Lance," Hunk said. "I can't do this."

Lance was already piloting them back down towards the surface, the shifting image outside giving him vertigo.

"Yes, you can," Lance said. "I know you can. Just like I knew you could make it through zero-g training, and just like I've always known you had my back in the simulator. Now I can't tell you anything about fate, but I do know that I'm not going to let the Galra ever get anywhere near Earth, so if we need the yellow lion, then we need the yellow lion, and if you're the only one who can pilot it then we need you to pilot it. It might not be fate and it might not be fair, but it is what we need if you're ever going to be able to sit at a desk on Earth and take cool stuff apart someday without worrying about an alien invasion."

"Ugh," Hunk said, unbuckling his harness. "Do you have any Kool-Aid?"

"Dude, if you see anything drinkable in this lion, I will remind you that it's older than the pyramids. I think. I still don't know how long a pheeb is."

Hunk made his way down to the entry/mouth thing.

"Alright buddy, hang on tight!" Lance said.

A wine involuntarily made its way out of Hunk's throat as the jaws of the Blue Lion opened up and the wind started ripping all around him as the ground got closer and closer. Just before impact, Lance pulled up and skimmed the surface, and rapidly decelerated. Hunk held on, right up until the end when the lion screamed to a stop on the rocky surface and Hunk lost his grip and flew right out and somehow managed to land in a tumbling roll that didn't break anything. There was the sound of what could only be some sort of energy weapon, if the bright flashes of light splashing around the Blue Lion was any indication. Hunk got up and decided to get as far away from them as possible and ran into the tunnel entrance. A few moments later, he heard Lance take off.

The entrance was very steep, and Hunk wound up falling a couple of times on the way down leaving him bruised all over. Another checkmark in the 'definitely not the chosen one,' column. Eventually he came into what looked like the main chamber. Every now and then something would blow up outside. Hunk hoped it wasn't Lance. Inside, it looked like there was something that the Galra had been trying to blow up. There were scorch marks on one of the walls that looked like they'd been trying to blast through an impenetrable rock face.

Suddenly the ground shook and a concussive shock wave shook Hunk to his bones and the light dimmed as part of the tunnel behind him collapsed.

"Crap, crap, crap," Hunk muttered. There weren't any other markings on the wall, but like Lance had back on Earth, Hunk went over and put his hand on the rock. Suddenly fissures that he hadn't seen before opened up and started glowing and before he knew it the wall crumbled down.

"Huh," Hunk said. That was an unfortunate check in the whole chosen one column. "Okay, so that happened," he said, reluctantly stepping into the chamber that had just been revealed. "Yep, and there's a giant yellow lion." The ground shook again. "Alright, alright, I'm on it."

He made his way forward. There was another particle barrier, just like there had been in Arizona, and Hunk hesitantly put out his hand and touched it, sure for a moment that he was going to get zapped back. He wasn't of course, which was just his luck, because now he actually had to climb into the thing and be it's Paladin.

"Could have gone to Auldridge Preparatory," Hunk said. "The Galaxy Garrison's the best place for me, I said."

The giant metal jaws closed behind him. Hunk sighed. No more excuses. Lance was fighting a battle on the surface making sure no one followed Hunk into the tunnel. Hunk rushed up the stairs to the cockpit on his very sore limbs and gingerly sat in the pilots seat. Everything lit up.

"Alright, great big lion spaceship thing," Hunk said. "I've never even driven a car, but I guess I'm supposed to pilot you, so um…" He reached out and grabbed the controls. He could almost hear a satisfied purr in the hum of systems coming on line.

"Nothing for it, I guess." Hunk pulled back on the controls and closed his eyes as his lion shot up and though the rocky cavern.

"Hahah!" Lance's voice came on over the comm. "I told you you were a Paladin!" he said. "Come give me a hand here."

Somehow, Hunk figured out the telemetry and followed it to the Blue Lion, where Lance was trying to shake some sort of fighter style ships that were on his tail. Hunk wasn't sure how to activate weapons, but he figured the ships couldn't be much tougher than the meters of rock he'd just busted through and he shot forward and plowed into two of the fighters.

"Hah!" Lance crowed. "Good one."

As they spiraled away and blew up in a fiery explosion, the Blue Lion in front of him suddenly did a barrel roll and flipped around and some sort of particle beam came out of its mouth and took out the other two fighters. Hunk had not realized that when he had been climbing into the lion's mouth that he had also been climbing into a powerful particle weapon.

"Okay, let's get out of here," Lance said. The Blue Lion shot up. "Oh my god, Hunk, you will not believe some of the moves I just pulled."

* * *

The area where the sensors indicated the lion was was covered in thick vegetation, so they'd had to park the small Altean pod ship a bit of a ways away and walk on foot. Now that they were alone, Pidge kept expecting for Shiro to call her out for being Katie, but so far he hadn't said anything. They'd met a bunch in the lead up to launch, it wasn't even like her disguise was that good. He just didn't seem to remember her.

"You said you were Zarkon's prisoner," Pidge said.

"In a sense," Shiro said. "I don't think I ever met him. It's all sort of a haze. They moved me around for a while, eventually I got sent back to the ship that had originally captured me."

"Moved you around? What did they want with you?" Pidge asked.

"You hear that?" Shiro asked, pausing.

Katie stopped and listened. "A river."

They moved towards the sound and a wide slow moving river came into view.

Pidge looked at the device Coran had given her before they had left. It was a lot like the Voltron finder she and Hunk had whipped up in Gyeong's shack, only it also showed other sensor readings about their surroundings, including life signs.

"Two things," Pidge said. "The river seems to be flowing in the same direction we need to go, and we've got some sort of largish creature walking towards us." She pointed into the foliage.

"Stand behind me," Shiro said.

"Like behind you, behind you?" Pidge asked. "Or like behind you and off to the side?"

Shiro stepped in-between her and the now rustling foliage. Pidge was not expecting a human sized bipedal sloth like creature to come out. She got a little closer to Shiro.

"Hello," Shiro said, waving with his mechanical arm.

The sloth person made a few odd clicking noises and peered at Pidge. One of it's long claw like fingers pointed at the device in her hand. She held it up, reaching around Shiro and the creature reached out and touched the Voltron symbol on the side. They turned around and made what Pidge guessed was the universal 'follow me' gesture. She looked to Shiro who shrugged. They were leading them in the direction they were going anyway.

Eventually they got to a dugout canoe, tied up at the side of the river which they all got into.

"So," Pidge said, once they were under way. "Did the rest of your crew get moved around with you?"

Shiro seemed to think about it. "I don't really remember seeing them after we were captured."

Pidge sighed. "Did the Galra do something to you to make you forget?" she asked.

"Well if they did…"

"Right," Pidge said. She looked down at the handheld scanner. They were almost there.

"I'm not really sure about this whole, pilot a giant mechanical-but-also-"magic" lion thing," she said.

"What was your track at the Garrison?" Shiro asked. "I'm guessing science officer."

"Yeah," Pidge said. "What gave it away?" She turned a bit to showcase her backpack, at this point overflowing with all the tech she'd brought with her.

"So you've never piloted anything," Shiro said. "But after watching Lance with his lion? Those controls were completely alien to him, but he didn't have any trouble."

"It was like it was instinctual," Pidge said, nodding. "The princess talked like we were linked to these lions somehow."

"Lance acted like he was," Shiro said. "If we all really are chosen to be these Paladins, I don't think you need to worry about it too much."

"Yeah, well it's not just piloting I'm worried about," Pidge said.

"Why did you join the Garrison?" Shiro asked.

"Oh, you know," Pidge said. "Space, I just, love it so much."

"You didn't sign up for a war," Shiro said. "I get that."

"I signed up for whatever I needed to do," Pidge muttered.

"Needed to do?" Shiro asked.

"For space?" Pidge said.

"You hacked the Garrison's mainframe for space?" Shiro asked.

"I knew they were hiding something," Pidge said. "Then I figured out it was aliens"

"You seem plenty motivated," Shiro said.

"I am," Pidge said.

"So what are you worried about?" Shiro asked.

"It took everything I had to get this far," Pidge said. "Hack the Garrison, track the signals, decode the transmissions, that's my wheelhouse. I'm not a fighter. I'll do whatever's needed, but I don't think the universe needs me to be a Paladin."

"What was your combat class at the garrison?" Shiro asked.

Pidge blushed. "I didn't take one."

"They're mandatory," Shiro said.

"Well my record says I took Combat Marksmanship and Close Quarters Combat," Pidge said.

"Yes, those would have been good classes for you to take," Shiro said nodding his head. "I'm going to have to keep an eye on you, aren't I."

"You'll be happier if you don't," Pidge said.

Shiro shook his head. "Look, I don't know what's going to happen from here on out. My job right now is to protect Earth. That's the Oath we all took when we joined. I didn't really believe I'd ever see aliens when I took it, but here we are. The point is, we're facing an enemy that's basically a galactic empire. If this Voltron is the best chance of defeating them then we need Voltron. And if for whatever reason, it's been waiting ten thousand pheebs, or whatever, for the five of us, well… I need you. The galaxy needs you. And maybe it needs a Paladin who can hack anything and put together a Voltron detector with some spare parts."

"You're asking me to believe in some weird mysticism, and that's a tall order," Pidge said. "What if I'm the wrong person for this thing and I lose the chance to do what I need to do."

Shiro shrugged. "You know someone once told me something back when I was a cadet that's stuck with me. 'If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great.'"

Pidge almost choked.

"You've heard that before?" Shiro asked.

"That was… Commander Holt said that," Pidge said. Her Dad had said that so many times when she was growing up.

"That's right," Shiro said. "You can't do anything if you don't first try."

Pidge didn't believe in fate, or magic, or anything like that, but just then she let herself believe that it was a message from her father that she was on the right path. She hadn't really joined the Garrison, she'd never taken any oath. She wasn't out here to protect Earth or the Galaxy. She was saving her family. If she saved the galaxy and that meant they had a home to go to in the end, well that was serendipity.

* * *

Keith went ahead and wandered around a bit hoping something would jog his memory more than it already had. He found himself resisting the urge to really think of everything that had happened. He just needed to focus on what was going to happen next. Lance would come back, Keith would find his lion, and they would form Voltron and they'd fight the Galra, and Keith would make sure that he wouldn't know what it felt like to lose his soulmate in this lifetime.

He stumbled across Allura as he entered a large room with some complicated looking thing that Hunk or Pidge would probably like to see. Allura was doing something to it that was probably important, and he would have probably left her to her own devices, except…

"You know there's a mouse on your shoulder?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Keith, right?"

Keith nodded.

"This little guy managed to smuggle aboard my cryopod with a few of his little friends. Somewhere along the way our quintessence harmonized and we became telepathically linked. The rest of them are inside of this teludav inductor taking a look inside for me so I don't have to take it apart."

"Huh," Keith said. With everything else that was his life, he was willing to accept telepathic mice.

"Do humans ever remember their past lives?" Allura asked.

"What?" Keith asked.

"Are there any humans on Earth who have ever reported being able to remember past lives?" Allura asked. "It would be rare, they would come in pairs, and I know such people aren't trusted in some societies, so I didn't want to say anything in front of the others, but if you do remember anything it could be valuable."

"You could tell?" Keith asked before remembering that he was supposed to be playing dumb.

"You aren't just like Gyrgan, your quintessence is Gyrgan's," Allura said. "It's been so long. Do you even remember Voltron?"

"I don't even remember the name Gyrgan," Keith said with a shake of his head. "I don't remember being a Paladin, but I remember looking for Voltron. I spent lifetimes looking for Voltron. But you and Coran… It's just a feeling."

"And the Blue Paladin is your other half?" Allura asked, and here she seemed perturbed.

"He doesn't remember," Keith said. "We don't get along."

This seemed to shock Allura.

"We haven't actually spent that much time with each other yet," Keith defended.

"Is there that much differences in humans, that some are sensitive to quintessence and some are not?" Allura asked.

"As far as I know, no human is sensitive to quintessence like that," Keith said.

"And yet you are?" Allura asked.

"Rigel seven was destroyed by the Galra in my last lifetime," said Kieth, deliberately not answering her question "No idea what that would be in Altean, but wherever we were I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in Earth's quadrant of the galaxy. They'd just started taking an interest in that area. Didn't know anything about the Galra in the life before that. Before that my lives are too jumbled to give you any proper timeline, and I'd have trouble telling you any strategic details. The Galra have a massive presence all over the galaxy, though I guess they started on the opposite end to Earth. If this is fate, princess, then we're fated to fight an impossible battle."

"So we should give up?" Allura asked.

Keith shook his head. "I'm not good at that," he said. "But you should know that we're facing an empire that's conquered the vast majority of the galaxy. Thousands of worlds. I've fought the Galra before and I'll fight them again. You have to know, though, that Lance comes first."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Allura said. "Not from one of the Wanderers. But you have to realize that he will never be safe so long as the Empire is allowed to do as it pleases."

"I said I'd fight," Keith said. "I'll pilot this lion, if you can find it, but don't expect me to join your pep rallies. We fight for whatever good we can do. If you think you're going to save the galaxy, you clearly don't know what state the galaxy is in."

"You clearly don't remember Voltron, or who you can be," Allura said.

"I remember enough," Keith said, noticing three mice exiting the device Allura had been working on. "Don't tell the others," he said, walking away.

Keith didn't know what time the other's had left, and he hadn't really been paying attention to his watch since, so he had no idea how long it took them to get back, other than that it took too long. He resisted the urge to go greet Lance when he got back. What mattered was that he got back. He listened to Lance and Hunk recounting their adventure getting the Yellow Lion from the planet that had in fact been swarming with Galra. Keith decided that Lance wouldn't be going on anymore missions without him in the future.

Shiro and Pidge got back not much later with the Green Lion. Now all they needed was the Red Lion and they'd be set to see if a millennia old robot was a match for a galactic empire. The two Alteans huddled together with Hunk and Pidge to discuss possible ways to track down Keith's lion until a blip on the main control panel caught Coran's attention.

"Small problem," Coran said.

"What's wrong?" Allura asked.

"Galra ships may have gotten a bit faster than they were when we went to sleep," Coran said.

"So when is it going to get here?" Shiro asked.

"I'd give us another varga," Coran said. Everyone looked at Pidge.

"Forty-two minutes."

"Okay," Hunk said. "Well we tried. Couldn't find all the lions, so why don't we just hop in the ones we've got and get out of here."

"We can't abandon the Black Lion to the Galra," Keith said.

"Three lions are more than enough to take on a single Galra cruiser," Allura said.

"It's been ten thousand years since you've seen a Galra cruiser," Pidge said.

"Yeah," Hunk said. "You also thought they'd be a lot slower."

"Look," Lance said. "No problem. Blue and me'll take care of it."

"You're not fighting the Galra alone," Keith said.

"Oh yeah, and what are you going to do?" Lance asked. "You don't even have a lion, and I don't need a backseat pilot."

"They are newly bonded," Coran said. "They haven't unlocked their lions' potential."

"Are you suggesting our lions aren't as strong as they'll be when we 'bond' with them more?" Pidge asked.

"Of course," Coran said.

"Right," Hunk said. "That. So we could attack the Galra with our ten thousand years out of date lions, or we could all go through a wormhole and just not be here when the Galra show up," he said. "Because, yeah, alien weapons have probably advanced a bit in the last ten thousand years."

"They're looking for Voltron for a reason," Coran said. "It is as the princess told you, Voltron is not merely technological. The Galra want Voltron because they know it's a threat to their empire. You may not be ready, but the galaxy cannot survive Voltron falling into their hands. We cannot simply give up."

"Can the castle survive if they decide to fire on the planet?" Shiro asked.

"I've got the fabricators generating a couple of new control chips for the castle's defenses," Coran said. "Besides that, everything should be good to go, though we won't really know until we can turn everything on."

"Will it be ready in time?" Hunk asked. "Should I help you take a look at the systems?"

"It'll be a close thing," Coran said, bringing up a progress bar on the control panel. "Probably best if the lions keep the ship distracted."

"This isn't a purely binary decision," Shiro said. "Princess, if we need a quick escape, how long would it take to create a wormhole?"

"Relatively quick," Allura said.

"We probe their defenses, see how powerful they are, and if we need to leave, then we leave," Shiro said.

"Princess I can take you in Blue if you need a quick getaway," Lance said, his voice suddenly dropping an octave.

The princess gave Coran a look and he shook his head.

"Only if we absolutely must," Allura said. "I will not leave the Black Lion for Zarkon."

"Okay," Shiro said. "Lance, I want you in your lion. You've got forty minutes to become as familiar with it's controls as you can." He turned to Coran. "Is this planet's moon populated?"

Coran checked the sensor panel. "It is completely lifeless."

"Practice some strafing runs," Shiro said. "Pidge, Hunk, find that lion, if we can get all five, we'll be set, but you need to be in your lions by the time that ship gets here. Keith, you and me are going to be by the pods. We're leaving as soon as we get word on your lion.

"Coran," Allura said. "Get these three into their armor. I'll work with Hunk and Pidge."

"Of course Princess," Coran said. "Right this way, you lot, time to get you into your Paladin armor."

They followed Coran to an armory where five suits of color coded armor were on display.

"Alright, usually helps to get the leg pieces first," Coran said. "Then chest, arms, and helmet. You should be able to get your own armor on by yourself, but it's faster if you help each other out."

There was a body suit that seemed to resize itself to fit Keith. The armor pieces also seemed to resize in a way that didn't look right for something that was very solid. Keith and Shiro worked together to get into their armor while Coran helped Lance.

"Oh my gosh, I look so cool," Lance said. Though Keith was pretty sure he'd said it in Spanish, since like with the Alteans, his lips and words didn't seem to match up. Lance flexed and posed a bit and Keith had to admit, to himself, that he did look very good.

"A lot of your suit is thought activated," Coran said. "Focus on your visor covering your entire face."

With a thought the helmets visor that had been just in front of his eyes extended down.

"Like this, your armor is completely sealed and you'll be able to survive the vacuum of space. Another thought will activate your shield. It's projected from your gauntlets. You've got a jet pack on your back. I'd teach you about the computers inside, but we don't really have the time. Come here and get your bayards."

A panel next to Coran opened up and revealed four devices, identical but for their color coding.

"Unfortunately we lost the black bayard with it's Paladin," Coran said. "But you two can go ahead and grab yours. The bayard is the weapon of the Paladin and it activates also with a thought. It will become the weapon that best suits you."

Keith picked up the red one as Lance picked up the blue. A moment later, and solid armor that resized itself to fit you didn't seem as strange as the small Sci-fi blaster like weapon transformed itself. Lance was holding some sort of large particle beam rifle and Keith watched as he examined the features and looked through the sight on top.

"Alright Gyeong, let's see what you've got," Lance said.

Keith activated his bayard with a thought and wasn't terribly surprised to find it transform into a sword with a bracer that wrapped around his forearm.

"A sword?" Lance crowed. "Were you raised in a ren-fair or something?"

Keith's face flamed red. "You want to go, cargo pilot?"

"That's enough," Shiro said. "Lance, get to your lion. If the Galra get here before Hunk and Pidge get into the air, keep them distracted but keep your distance."

"Roger that," Lance said, deactivating his bayard.

"Hold it over your thigh and think about storing it," Coran said.

Lance paused and did as he was told and the bayard seemed to disappear.

"Video game logic!" Lance exclaimed with a grin and walked out of the room.

"Are you comfortable with that?" Shiro asked, gesturing to the sword.

Keith stepped back a few steps and moved through a few forms to test the balance and feel of the weapon. It almost felt insubstantial, like it was made out of styrofoam, but Keith had little doubt that it would do the job. Deactivating it, he stowed it in his armor and walked out with Shiro towards the pod bay.

"You two keep fighting," Shiro said.

"He keeps picking fights," Keith said.

"You keep giving them to him," Shiro said.

"He really gets on my nerves," Keith said.

"Does he?" Shiro said. "Because I sort of got the idea you'd brush his comments off if they were coming from anyone else."

Keith blushed and turned his head a bit so his helmet would block his face from Shiro's view.

"Are you doing alright?" Keith asked instead.

"I'm doing just fine," Shiro said.

"Yesterday you were a prisoner to an evil alien empire."

Shiro nodded. "Bit of a changeup," he said. "But I'm focused on the mission."

Suddenly Pidge's voice came in over their comms.

"Good news bad news Keith."

"What's happening?" Keith asked.

"Well, we found your lion," Pidge said. "That's the good news. The bad news is that it's on the ship that's on its way right now."

That figured. Though the Princess did keep on about fate.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Pidge, Hunk, get into your armor. Lance, are you hearing this? We've got a new plan."

"Are you sending me in for an extraction?" Lance asked, sounding far too eager.

"You and Hunk are going to be the distraction," Shiro said.

Shiro took charge of planning the extraction while the princess and Coran went back to getting the castle ready for combat.

The plan was rather complex. The Yellow and Blue Lion would pretend to surrender (Keith supposed that international laws of war didn't apply outside of the solar system) while the Green Lion snuck up on the cruiser and Keith, Shiro, and Pidge snuck aboard and found the Red Lion. Keith didn't like the plan, since it directly went against his resolution to not let Lance go off on missions without him.

Soon enough the others were suited up and the mission was under way. Everything was happening so fast. Just that morning he'd been on Earth and the next thing he'd known he was in another solar system and he was about to infiltrate an alien spaceship. It was everything he'd ever wanted growing up and all of a sudden he had it. He could hear Lance and Hunk over the comms as they pretended to negotiate with the alien commander. Pidge opened up the hatch on the Green Lion and suddenly Keith was doing his first space walk. Queue memories proving that he'd done it all a hundred times before.

* * *

"Why are we doing this?" Hunk asked. He and Lance were in their lions and were waiting for the Galra ship to arrive.

"With great power comes great responsibility," Lance's voice came in over the comm.

"Did you just?" Pidge's indignant voice came in as well.

"Switching to two-way," Lance said. "Can you still hear me over there?" He asked.

"Yeah," Hunk said. "This is crazy, right? Tell me you know that this is crazy."

"Hunk, I'm sitting in an ancient giant magical space lion," Lance said. "We're past crazy."

"Yeah, but there's accepting technology that doesn't make sense, and then there's doing something crazy, like acting as bait."

"We're not bait," Lance said. "We're a distraction."

"Looks like bait, smells like bait," Hunk said.

"Yeah, well you're bait in a giant heavily armored spaceship," Lance said.

"Which the Galra want to scoop me out of like its a tin of sardines," Hunk said.

"Then focus on not getting caught," Lance said.

Then the Galra ship dropped into space right in front of them.

"They're hailing us," Hunk noted.

"Let it ring a bit," Lance said. "Draw this out a bit longer." Hunk noticed Lance switching between channels. "How're you doing Pidge?"

"Getting into position now," Pidge said.

One of his control panels started blinking at him. "Something's charging on the Galran ship, you guys," Hunk said.

"Opening a channel," Lance said.

The screen in front of Hunk brought up Lance's image, as well as what he was guessing was a Galra.

"I am Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire. I will speak to Princess Allura."

"Sendak! How's it going buddy, the princess is a bit busy right now, figured we'd just park out here in orbit as a bit of a welcoming committee."

"Prepare to surrender the lions of Voltron," Sendak said gruffly.

"Woah, woah, woah," Lance said. "Shouldn't we negotiate the terms of our surrender?"

"The terms are that you surrender in the hopes that I do not take the time to kill you very slowly."

"Okay, see now that's why we need to negotiate," Lance said. "How about we put no killing at all on the table?"

"Engage tractor beam," Sendak said.

"Break, break, break!" Lance barked, and Hunk shot away from the bright light that was now coming out from the front of the cruiser.

"They've launched fighters," Coran came in over the intercom. "And they're charging their particle cannon. It's aimed for the castle."

"How are those defenses?" Shiro asked.

"Not quite there yet," Coran said.

"Hunk," Lance said. "Take care of the big blaster thing, I'll keep the fighters off your back."

"Uhhh, right" Hunk said. His telemetry showed him a large spike of energy coming from some massive contraption on top of the ship. Hunk flew towards it, ready to tear it apart with his lion, only to bounce off of a particle barrier.

"This thing's shielded guys," Hunk said.

"Work the problem," Lance called out.

Hunk fired on the particle barrier, but there didn't seem to be much of an affect.

"It looks like their capacitors are almost full," Coran said.

"Uhhh," Hunk said, feeling dread and doubt rise up.

"Hunk," Lance said.

"I'm not sure," Hunk said.

"You don't need to be sure," Lance said. "Whatever you're thinking just do it."

Hunk sent his lion barreling forward, but this time it wasn't toward the cannon, but towards the nose of the ship. He touched up against the particle barrier and gunned the accelerator.

"They're firing," Coran said, and a purple light washed out the view screen momentarily. "And they missed."

Hunk breathed a sigh of relief. Then he felt as the cruiser started to correct for his own maneuvering.

* * *

Pidge had just latched her lions claws into the underside of the Galra ship when her instrument panel let her know that the ship had raised its particle barrier.

"Might have to disable that before we leave," Pidge said.

"Ready?" Shiro asked as she got out of the pilots chair.

"No, but let's do this," Pidge said.

"Go easy on thrusters," Shiro said.

"Understood," Keith said.

The chamber was depressurized and then the hatch opened up and Pidge gently launched herself out the opening. Or she thought she'd been gentle. "Woah," she said as she started out into the vacuum a lot faster than she'd planned. Then she 'gently' engaged her thrusters and wound up slamming into the side of the ship. She focused on holding on and something in her armor engaged and her hands and feet were drawn to the hull. She looked up in time to see Shiro touch down feet first like it was nothing, followed by Keith who gently landed on his hands and knees before standing up.

"Are you all right?" Shiro asked.

"Perfect," Pidge said, shakily standing up in an environment where there was no up. She didn't look into the void, instead she pulled out her Bayard and activated it. Crouching down she knelt down and cut a hole out of the hull only to have Shiro roughly pull her back before the section of hull she'd cut out was explosively shot off the ship with a rush of atmosphere.

"Right," Pidge said. It didn't take long for the compartment to vent and then they were in.

"Give me the device," Shiro said.

Keith handed him the thing that Coran had given them before they'd left. Shiro placed it centered in the hole in the hull and activated it. A particle barrier sprung up covering the hole and the device started spewing out air to fill the chamber that they were in. Pidge gave a few experimental taps to her wrist computer and determined that they had an appropriate amount of air. She pulled up the visor on her helmet with a thought.

"Do you feel anything Keith?" Shiro asked.

Keith pointed. "That way."

Shiro nodded. "Bayards out."

Keith's sword materialized in his hand and Pidge went and opened the door leading out of the chamber they were in. Shiro went out first, leading the way. Suddenly Keith's hand was on her shoulder, halting her, and that was when she heard footsteps coming from around the corner. Shiro charged forward, his mechanical hand now glowing a violent purple. He screamed wordlessly and then there were two metallic clunks. Keith moved forward, keeping Pidge behind him as they rounded the corner. Shiro was there standing over what looked like two humanoid robots that had been torn asunder. He looked at the two of them for a moment as if he didn't know who they were, but the moment passed.

"Did you know your arm did that?" Keith asked.

Shiro shook his head before his eyes zeroed in on an emblem on the side of one of the robots' shoulders.

"This is the Previx," Shiro said.

"The ship?" Keith asked.

"I was here for a while," Shiro said.

"Then the Holts could be here," Pidge said, looking up from where she had already hunkered down to look at the insides of the robot. Her suits scanner was already giving her interesting feedback on some of the parts and she yanked a chip out and stowed it before she turned towards Shiro. "Do you know where they kept prisoners?"

"We have a mission," Shiro said, a grim but firm look on his face. "This is bigger than that."

"We can't abandon them," Pidge said.

"I don't remember them being here," Shiro said. "And we're not abandoning them. We're going to war with the Empire that's holding them prisoner. I'm not giving up on finding them some day, but I can't turn every mission into a search and rescue."

"They're my family," Pidge said. "Commander Holt's my dad, Matt's my brother. If there's even a chance that they're here then I'm not leaving till we've checked."

There was a bit of a standoff after that as Shiro and Keith stared at her.

"Keith," Shiro said. "Follow your gut. Get to your lion."

"Shiro," Keith said, the word a protest.

"There's holding cells," Shiro said. "I can get us there, but you need to focus on getting your lion."

Keith nodded and took off.

"Do you remember me?" Pidge asked.

Shiro shook his head. "Not really," he said. It sort of hurt, but she wasn't eagerly waiting to see how he'd react when he realized she was a fourteen year old girl.

"Well which way do we go?" Pidge asked.

Shiro looked around. "This way," he said.

* * *

Flying against the fighters when they'd gone to get Hunk's lion had been exhilarating. Out in the vacuum of space, away from the pull of gravity, it was something else. The simulator at the Garrison hadn't prepared him for how awesome it was. The lion could make moves that would tear apart the Garrison fighters, and there had to be some sort of inertial dampeners, like in Star Trek, because otherwise Lance would have been turned to jelly already from the g-forces he'd otherwise be pulling.

His lion trembled as he took another hit and he used his lion's tail to shoot back.

"That's another one for Lance," he called out.

"You're not competing against anyone," Hunk said. "You're the only one fighting the fighters."

"How are you doing?" Lance asked.

"They're getting better at correcting for me knocking them off target," Hunk said.

Lance flipped his lion around and fired at the two fighters that had come up behind him.

"Princess?" Lance asked.

"We almost have it," the princess said.

"Pidge," Lance said. "You figured out their transmissions earlier. Any chance you can get into their computers?"

"I already captured one of their drones and reconfigured it," Pidge said. "His name's Rover and he's my new best friend."

"Yeah, cool," Lance said. "Can you do anything about their shields?"

"Give me a bit," Pidge said.

Lance took a hit and realized he'd gotten distracted worrying about the cannon. Sinking back into his awareness of the controls and console he flipped his lion around and shot forward at the fighter that had snuck up behind him. There was another one for Lance Sanchez.

* * *

Keith listened to Lance on the comms as he made his way through the cruiser feeling the tug of the Red Lion as he made his way through. Two robot sentries rounded the corner and Keith activated his shield and charged with his sword raised high.

The problem was that his sense for where the lion was was just a direction, rather than a route through the ship. It was a while and a few dead ends before he found himself in front of some large bay doors. He activated the control panel next to the door and stepped through, greeted by the sight of his lion. He heard an echoing roar in his head, a distant memory, but one that spread warmth throughout him. He ran up to the particle barrier surrounding the lion and put his hand up against it in greeting. Nothing happened.

"It's me, open up," Keith said, looking for some sign from the silent lion. "Come on, I'm your Paladin. I'm… I'm Gyrgan. Don't you remember me?"

The lion just stood there stoically. "I've been looking for you. I spent lifetimes looking for you. You can't have just forgotten me. I'm your Paladin. I think maybe I've always been your Paladin."

The doors behind him opened up and sentries piled in. Keith activated his shield and his Bayard with a roar and charged forward.

"What?" he asked. "Are you upset that I left? Newsflash. People don't always stick around. Even if you belong together. Even if you aren't meant to be apart. That's life Red."

He brought his sword around in an arc, shifting his hips with the movement as he cut a sentry in half as blaster fire splashed across his shield.

"So what are you going to do?" Keith asked as he kicked the husk of a sentry helmet off his sword. "You going to sit out this fight? Because I'm still going. I don't get a choice in this all." He could hear Lance crowing about another fighter taken out over the comms.

Then a blaster hit him in the back and sent him sprawling, his shield disappearing as he braced for the fall. He flipped himself over onto his back to find himself surrounded. Not how he'd been expecting to go out this lifetime, but close enough. He could still hear Lance.

Red's roar seemed to even shake the robotic sentries and a with a great crash she landed next to him, a mighty swipe of her paw sent sentries flying.

"Good kitty," Keith said, standing up. He activated his jets to get up to the waiting jaws of his lion, not sure how to feel about the reversal.

"I've got Red," Keith said, activating the comm.

"Are you inside the ship or outside?" Pidge asked.

"About to be outside," Keith said, activating his weapons array.

"Great," Pidge said. "I got their schematics. I'm sending you the locations of their particle barrier emitters. Get the ones around the cannon."

"Please hurry," Coran came on.

"Send him our extraction point also," Shiro said. "Lance, we've got a number of prisoners we freed from their brig in an escape pod that's about to exit the aft of the ship. Keep the fighters away from it.

"On it," Keith and Lance said at the same time.

Keith blasted his way out of the hangar and skimmed the insides of the particle barrier as he made his way towards the emitters, his own weapons punching a furrow into the ship as he went.

"It's about to fire again," Coran said.

"Shields are down around the cannon," Keith said.

Hunk's yell came over the comm and Keith watched as the Yellow Lion rammed into the cannon which writhed with purple energy and seemed to crumple where Hunk had hit it.

"Yes!" Lance called out. "Good work Hunk."

"Keith?" Shiro asked.

"On my way," Keith said, moving towards the aft of the ship where he picked up Shiro and Pidge and took Pidge to the Green Lion. Shiro came up to stand besides him in the cockpit, and Keith didn't think they'd seen anymore combat after they'd parted, but he looked haggard.

"Where's that pod, Lance?" Shiro asked.

"Almost to the atmosphere," Lance said. "But they really want to get it back; the fighters are going after it."

"Keith," Shiro commanded. "Go give Lance a hand. Pidge, start taking out shield emitters. Hunk, I want you to rip that cannon off the ship."

"Yeah, I can do that," Hunk said.

Keith ducked out from under the particle barrier and shot off after Lance. He heard Red growl as she identified the Galra targets in front of them. With the other ship to protect, Lance was less in a dogfight with the other ships and more using himself as a shield for the much smaller craft, focusing on targeting the ships that tried to get around him. Keith growled with his lion as he saw the Blue Lion shudder under the onslaught. He pounced on the closest fighter, ripping off one of its wings before he fired on the two right in front of him.

"Lance! Are you alright?" Keith asked.

"Why don't you worry about your own lion?" Lance shot back.

Shiro put a hand on Keith's shoulder before he could get out an angry retort. Keith focused on taking out the rest of the fighters.

"Emitters are down," Pidge said.

"Princess?" Shiro asked.

"I'm hailing our intruder now," Allura said. "Commander Sendak, was it? Perhaps you would like to negotiate the terms of your surrender."

"Victory or death," the Galra's voice came in over the comms.

"They've engaged thrusters," Pidge said.

"Disable their drive," Allura said. "We don't want them escaping."

"They're not escaping. They're accelerating towards the planet," Pidge said. "They're aiming for the castle."

"Good news!" Coran said. "Shields are up. Bad news, I don't think they're up for a hit like that just yet."

"Pidge," Shiro said. "Take out their thrusters."

"Sure," Pidge said. "But they're already on course."

"Destroy it," Keith said.

"That'll leave a ton of debris that's still on course for the castle," Shiro said.

"Yeah, I got this," Hunk said.

"What've you got?" Lance asked.

"Leave it to a pro," Hunk said.

The Yellow Lion flew up once more to the tip of the cruiser and started pushing it off course.

"I mean, if they really want to crash that badly," Lance said.

"Pidge, can you give us a better place for Hunk to direct the ship besides away from the castle?"

"On it," Pidge said. "Hunk, there's what looks like a rather lifeless looking desert beyond the mountain range that surrounds the castle. Adjust your vector thirty six degrees towards the planets northern poles."

"Yeah," Hunk said. "Engineers don't get nav courses."

"Oh," Pidge said. "Um, I think… Yeah, I dropped a pin and sent it to you. Just aim for the ex."

"Yeah, that works," Hunk said.

"That's the last of the fighters," Lance called out.

"Lance, Keith, I want you to flank the cruiser," Shiro said. "Just in case it manages to break away. All three of you peel off one kilometer from the surface."

"On it," Lance said. Keith redirected Red towards the ship, keeping an eye on Lance's lion on his screen as he did.

"I took out everything resembling a thruster on that thing," Pidge said. "They're not breaking away. But also, without it's shields it's probably going to start breaking up sooner than that."

"Good point," Shiro said. "All three of you, keep with it but keep your distance."

"So we're just going to watch them crash?" Pidge asked.

"A bit anti climactic," Lance said. As if he was disappointed. As if this was some grand adventure for him that wasn't ending the way it was supposed to. As if they should have only won by the grace of a hail marry. Lance wasn't ready to be out of the Garrison, much less fighting in a war.

"There's always next time," Pidge said.

Because there would be a next time. If they were lucky, there'd be a next time after that, and on and on. The war wasn't going to end anytime soon. They had the lions, but the Galra weren't just going to give up, even if Voltron did turn out to be some game changer.

* * *

Another planet saved from the Galra in the same day, the four lions landed inside of the ship in a massive hangar that held the four lions. Then the four lions decided to roar in unison and it turned out that the chamber was even bigger than he'd thought it was because a big wall opened up revealing Shiro's lion. And that was that. They had the five lions of Voltron, and Lance knew that this was the culmination of every moment of hard work he'd put in since he was twelve and he'd decided he was going to go to space.

Then they got assignments. Shiro and Allura went to deal with the prisoners that had been freed from the ship. Coran was still fixing up the castle. Lance got tasked with flying out to the wreckage of the Galra ship to scan for survivors. Meanwhile Gyeong got tasked with taking Hunk and Pidge out in their lions and getting them more familiar with piloting. Even though Lance was their team leader, and Gyeong was the washout.

So Lance went out and ran scans. The castle's scanners could have probably picked up anything there, but if there was any shielding they'd want to scan from multiple vectors. So, instead of doing something useful, like training the others, Lance got to fly around in circles scanning from this way and that before landing and letting the Blue Lion run around on the surface to get up real close to the wreckage that was strewn about all over the place. The great big ship didn't have the biggest terminal velocity after being slowed down by the thick Arusian atmosphere, but the angle it had hit had had it skimming along the surface leaving big chunks of the ship behind and a big scar in the landscape before it had collided with a big mountain cliff face.

"Lance, right?" Coran's voice came in over the comms.

"That's me," Lance said. "I'm not finding anything out here. Short of heading inside the main wreckage I don't think I'm going to get any better readings."

"Not without backup or knowing what the structural integrity of the ship is," Coran said. "Why don't you come back and help me with some things on my end."

"Copy that," Lance said. "You know, there's some sort of village about five kilometers from the castle?"

"Units of measure don't typically translate well," Coran said. "But yes, they do show up on the ships scanners. They must have had a bit of a light show today."

"Hah, yeah, they didn't look very advanced, so this is probably blowing their minds," Lance said, not mentioning that it would have blown minds back on Earth.

Helping Coran basically meant cleaning, which he was used to, both from his time at the Garrison and at the hotel, but it didn't really fit with the action hero space adventurer he had now become. There were only seven of them now, though, so he guessed that there wasn't going to be a cleaning crew anytime soon. Still, Gyeong got to fly around in space while Lance cleaned old grease off of some sort of parts that did something he didn't understand for the ship so Coran could reinstall them with new grease.

* * *

"No, not like that," Keith said, for the hundredth time. "Just do it like I did it."

"That's not a description of how to do it," Pidge complained.

"I think I'm going to hurl," Hunk said.

Keith groaned. Why'd he have to get saddled with this job?

* * *

The prisoners that they'd freed had been put up in a large ballroom and while Allura used a medical scanner to check over their guests, Shiro took the first two to get through to the kitchens to bring back food for everyone.

"What do they do with prisoners who aren't large and physically powerful?" Shiro asked. That was what all of the prisoners seemed to have in common. He didn't think either of the Holts would have fit into that group.

"If they're lucky, they get sent to a labor camp," a five armed alien with a good foot on Shiro said.

"And if they aren't lucky?" Shiro asked.

"Then they face us in the arena as a warm up."

"Arena?" Shiro asked. They already knew that he didn't remember what had happened to him. He and Pidge had opened up the door to their mass cell and they'd looked at him in shock, calling him 'the Champion.' They had seemed to know him, or at least they'd seemed to know of him.

"Every large Galra ship has one. They pit us against each other in the arena, and Galra from all over the empire get a feed of the fight. They trade you around from ship to ship if you're popular."

An image of a large alien towering over him entered his mind, it yelled at him and charged.

"And the Champion?" Shiro asked.

"You were undefeated under Sendak, so he sent you to Zarkon's personal arena as a gift. That was where you were named Champion."

All he had to fight with was a club. His opponent had a sword. He took a step back to avoid a swing and came back forward, bringing his own weapon down on his opponents head. A thick green fluid went everywhere.

"Did I fight either of you?" Shiro asked, feeling his heart pound rapidly in his chest.

The fellow he was talking to raised the stump of his missing sixth arm in answer, making Shiro's stomach clench for a moment. He didn't remember that, but he could imagine it happening in his mind.

"Bryak here came in after you left," he said for the other one who hadn't talked at all.

Alteans had very advanced stasis technology, and the food that had been sitting in the castle for ten thousand years was still good to eat, apparently. Once in the kitchens, they started piling up a cart with as much food as it would carry, and then grabbed a bit more besides.

"So the fights in the arena isn't to the death?" Shiro asked, hoping that he'd have some sort of good news on the Holts, and for himself.

"The Galra reward victors, and they prefer bloodshed. They reward bloodshed. Of course, if the commander doesn't particularly care for the defeated, then he might send his pet drhakar in to finish things if the victor decides on mercy. I'm alive because you decided not to kill me, and because Sendak decided to see how many arms I could lose and still win in the arena. You showed mercy when you could. I think they found it amusing."

Shiro looked down at the arm that the Galra had given him. The arm that had burned through metal sentries like they were paper mache. What would it do to flesh?

"Princess Allura is asking the others, but is there anywhere you know of we can send you where you'll be safe?" Shiro asked, deciding he didn't want to know anything else about the arena. He hoped he never remembered anything else about the arena.

"My home is gone. We didn't know that there were worlds besides our own before the Galra came."

"I'm sorry," Shiro said. "We'll try to find a place for you."

They arrived back to the ballroom and started passing out food and then they went off again to find linens and when their guests were finally settled, Shiro and the Princess went off for a talk.

"Most of their injuries were old and healed over," Princess Allura said. "We'll have them sorted out by tomorrow. Apparently there's a major trading post a few sectors over. Athren seems to have taken charge of the group, and she thinks they should be able to sell off the Galran pod ship there and purchase passage to wherever they need to go."

"Good," Shiro said. That was one less thing to worry about. "We need to decide how this is all going to work."

"It won't be an issue," Princess Allura said. "Their pod is in perfect working order. I can open up a wormhole and send them through as soon as they're ready."

"I meant Voltron, and you, and this castle, and us. How does this work? You said, I lead Voltron. Do you expect me to manage your war?"

"You lead Voltron, but I will be managing the war, with Coran as my adviser," Allura said. "Voltron is not yours to do with as you please."

"I understand that," Shiro said. "Now, with all due respect, Princess, what experience do you have managing a war?"

"As the heir apparent of Altea, I was raised from a young age to garner peace throughout the galaxy, with Voltron at my side," Princess Allura said. "I've learned strategy from the cradle. In the five pheebs before Altea's destruction I sat on the Council of Conflicts. What are your own experiences?"

"I was taught field level strategy at the Garrison, and I studied historical conflicts," Shiro said. "To be honest, the most recent war on Earth ended when I was a small child. None of us have any actual experience. The Galra ship that abducted me was the first contact we'd had with aliens. None of us are exactly prepared for an interstellar war."

"Then you will recognize me as you regent and commander?" Princess Allura asked.

"Our people forewent monarchy for democracy a long time ago, Princess," Shiro said. "We won't be swearing fealty to you. I will follow your judgement though, when it comes to managing this war. Though I'm going to expect a plan a bit more involved than throw Voltron at the Galra."

"We'll work on that," Princess Allura said. "I'll expect you to advise me alongside Coran."

Shiro nodded his head.

"What can you tell me about the rest of the Paladins?"

"I only really know Keith," Shiro said. "He's my foster brother. He's very skilled as a pilot, and he's good with hand to hand combat, but he chafes under tight control."

Princess Allura held up a hand. "I'm sorry, I want to make sure I understand you," she said. "He will develop a skin rash?"

Shiro huffs a small laugh. It was easy to forget that idioms wouldn't translate well. "He gets upset if he can't do things his own way."

"As to be expected from the pilot of the Red Lion. You will be expected to guide him, even if he 'chafes,'" Princess Allura said. "What of the others?"

"I don't really know them at all," Shiro said. "They were all cadets. Lance was being trained as a pilot at the Garrison, Pidge as a science officer, and Hunk as an engineer."

"They are none of them warriors of Earth?" Princess Allura asked.

"Not in any sense of the word," Shiro said.

"They were chosen for a reason," Princess Allura said. "But still, we will have to get to know their abilities and train them in any deficiencies."

"Agreed," Shiro said. "I'm pretty confident I understand Keith's abilities. I'll talk with the other three tonight and get a sense of where they are and what their skill sets are. I'll tell you now, Pidge has little combat training. Lance and Hunk will have some, but it will be varied. I won't know what classes they took until I talk to them."

"It may be a while until Voltron is going to be ready to bring the fight to the Galra," Princess Allura said. "But we must move them as fast as we can."

Shiro nodded. "They're used to a high training tempo," he said.

"I'll take that to mean that they can keep up," Princess Allura said.

They were either going to have to stop using idioms or there was going to have to be a class.

"You should also know that there were two others who were captured with me by the Galra, and they're both Pidge's family," Shiro said. "I think it's safe to say that finding them is his primary objective."

"The prisoners called you 'the Champion,'" Princess Allura said. "I took that to mean that the Galra used you for blood sport."

Shiro nodded. "Prisoners who are 'lucky,' get sent to labor camps," he said. "Neither of them would have survived long otherwise, so that's my hope for now."

"My home is gone," Princess Allura said. "It's possible that Coran and I are the last of our people. I have little of my own left to protect. My priority now is stopping the Galra. Stopping Zarkon. What are your priorities, leader of Voltron?"

"I'm sworn to defend Earth," Shiro said. "It seems to me that the best way to do that is to defeat the Galra Empire."

"Then in this we are in accordance," Princess Allura said. She tapped one of the bracelets on her wrist and a holo display popped up. "Your Paladins should be back from their training by now, and I still need to make sure the teludav is properly calibrated."

* * *

"How was training?" Shiro asked Pidge when she walked into the office that Coran had set him up in.

"Horribly painful," Pidge said.

"Literally?" Shiro asked.

"Just for my pride and my patience," Pidge said.

"Well, there's going to be a lot of training in the future," Shiro said.

"How are we going to find my family?" Pidge asked.

"We fight the Galra, gain intelligence, free worlds that are being occupied," Shiro said. "If they're out there, Pidge, they'll be in a labor camp. That's the best I could get from our guests. We get your family back by waging war against the Galra."

"I can't wait until we just stumble upon them," Pidge said defiantly, and Shiro was torn on what track to take.

"Data gathering is going to be a priority," Shiro said. "When we find out where they are, we'll start planning an extraction."

"That's not good enough," Pidge said. "Did you forget them too, or did you just never care about them?"

That set Shiro on edge.

"There are a lot of people out there who want their family back," Shiro said. "There are a lot of families being ripped apart right now. Earth's going to be in their path sooner or later. This is the way it has to be. Freeing people is going to be a priority. Finding your family is going to be a priority, but not to the exclusion of everything else."

Pidge pushed his glasses back up his nose and was silent for a while. "The Garrison knew that there were aliens coming," he said. "They kept it quiet, to- to stop a panic, or, I don't know why, but they had everything they needed to figure out that there were going to be aliens in our solar system when you got to Kerberos. They didn't warn you. They sacrificed you for the greater good or some bullshit."

"We're not sacrificing your family," Shiro said.

"I get to look for them while we fight the Galra," Pidge said.

"Within the parameters of the mission," Shiro said.

"And we go get them when I find them," Pidge said.

"When we have a plan," Shiro said.

"Alright then," Pidge said, holding out his hand. Shiro took it, knowing that it was a bargain.

"Alright," Shiro said. "So, what do you bring to the table?"

Pidge pointed to the Galran droid hovering next to him. "Hacker," he said.

"I'd gathered as much when you told me you'd modified your school records so you wouldn't have to take a combat elective," Shiro said. As well as when he'd watched Pidge pick up an alien droid he'd never seen before and make it his own.

"I pick up physics and computer languages exceedingly fast, I'm a good liar, and I'm actually pretty good at crawling through air ducts."

"Any combat training whatsoever?" Shiro asked.

"None," Pidge said.

"Weaknesses?" Shiro asked.

Pidge held up his arms, which were not very well toned at all. "No kryptonites," Pidge said. "But I will forget to eat if I'm working on a problem, and sleep, and just, you know, everything."

"I know how to manage that," Shiro said. "Anything else I should know?"

Pidge shook his head, and he might have thought he was good at lying, but Shiro knew instantly that there was something he was hiding. "Alright," he said. "Princess Allura gave me a stack of tablets and communicator earpieces. Tap and say a name to open a channel. These ones are yours. Now, when you open up your tablet you're going to find a questionnaire. I've got a bunch of questions in there about flight skills and health, and anything else I could think of."

Pidge took the tablet, a glint in his eyes as he examined the alien tech.

"Maybe ask one of our hosts before you take it apart," Shiro said. "Send in Hunk on your way out."

* * *

Hunk felt like he was waiting outside the Commander's office. Lance seemed fine, for all that he'd just had a blowout with Keith, and was talking animatedly about the mission he'd gone on while they'd been training earlier. Training had not been fun. Besides pointing his lion at something and telling his lion to go forward, Hunk had no sense of direction, and even less of a desire to pull any maneuvers that would upset his stomach. Keith had just kept yelling at them and Hunk still wasn't sure what they had been supposed to have learned.

"So then I landed, and me and Blue ran around, poking at the wreckage, turning things over incase there was something hiding inside," Lance said. "It's not as cool as flying, but running around in Blue is great."

The door next to them opened up and Pidge walked out. "You're next," he said, looking at Hunk.

"Good luck buddy," Lance said.

Good luck would be for Shiro to decide to send him back to Earth. Though he had a suspicion he'd be arrested back on Earth.

"Hunk," Shiro said. "Have a seat. Is Hunk a nickname?"

"It is," Hunk said, not elaborating. "How long is this going to take?"

"Only a few minutes," Shiro said. "Same as with Pidge. I know it's been a long day but Coran's making sure the Paladin's quarters are set up for us."

"I meant this war thing," Hunk said.

Shiro sighed. "I honestly can't say. A long time. Look-"

"I already got the pep talk," Hunk said. "No point of going to Earth if the Galra are just going to destroy it. I get it but…"

"But this isn't what you signed up for," Shiro said.

"It's really not," Hunk said. "After I graduated, I was going to be counting down the days until I could get a desk job. I'm an engineer, and not a 'flight engineer,' a glorified mechanic. I designed hypothetical HRDs for fun. There's admittedly, a lot of stuff onboard I really want to take apart and figure out, but none of that translates to Paladin."

It wasn't that he didn't understand the need to stop the Galra. He'd basically already resigned himself to the stupid fatalistic mumbo jumbo that seemed to say that he was supposed to be a part of it. But that still didn't mean he liked it or thought it made any sense at all.

"We value the skills you bring to the table," Shiro said. "And we're going to work on developing your other skills. I've got a tablet computer for you with a questionnaire on it about your various skills and needs. Besides that I wanted to ask you about your experience. What was your combat class at the Garrison?" He handed over the tablet and a communicator with a brief explanation.

Hunk told him about being on the wrestling team, and he really hoped he wasn't going to be expected to wrestle any Galra. Then they talked about weaknesses.

"The Garrison wouldn't let me take anti-emetics when I was in the simulator," Hunk said.

"We'll work on that," Shiro said. "The Garrison was hoping to train you out of needing them, since you might not have access on long term missions. We don't really have the time for that and realistically, you're always a wormhole away. We'll see what we can do. By the way, what shape did your Bayard take?"

Hunk frowned. "Really big gatling gun like thing," he said. It wasn't really heavy, but he wasn't sure why he'd gotten it at all.

"Have you ever fired anything like it?" Shiro asked.

"Not ever," Hunk said.

Shiro nodded and Hunk wondered if the man also realized how ridiculous it was for Hunk to be a Paladin.

"Anything else you want to share?" Shiro asked.

"The food here is terrible," Hunk said.

"We'll work on that too," Shiro said. "Send in Lance on your way out."

* * *

It was sort of obvious that Keith still had some sort of feelings for Lance, which Shiro did not really understand since they didn't seem to like each other at all. Of course he wasn't going to judge his foster brother for his abysmal love life, and he'd try not to go big bad brother on Lance.

"Have a seat Cadet?" Shiro said.

"Am I still?" Lance asked, sitting down opposite him. Shiro wasn't sure why he'd called him 'cadet' in the first place.

"No, you're not," Shiro said. "You're a Paladin now. Any reservations."

"Well, dinner was in the form of goo, but I'm ready to kick some Galra butt, Sir," Lance said enthusiastically. He at least didn't seem to need a pep talk.

"I don't think we'll be doing 'Sirs'" Shiro said. "Call me Shiro." Hunk and Pidge seemed to have divested themselves of the word early on and the team dynamic he was thinking about didn't really mesh with the rigid protocols from the Garrison. "I wanted to get to know you all a bit better," he said. "Understand your strengths and what we might need to work on. You were in the support pilot track, right? I'll ask Keith to help get you up to speed." They'd need to learn to work together at least.

"Woah, woah, woah," Lance said. "I took Keith's spot in the fighter program when he got expelled the start of second year, when we actually start learning tricky maneuvers. That was about nine months ago. I was ranked sixth. He's behind me in terms of training."

That gave Shiro pause. He still didn't have a good handle on what had happened to Keith while he was gone.

"All right then," Shiro said. "We'll need to do an assessment of all of your flight skills anyway. Tell me about your combat track."

"Combat marksmanship, first and second year," Lance said. "I got sent to represent the Garrison at the IMSC World Marksmanship Championship. I took home silver in the Close Quarters Movement event on rifle. I received high ranks as team lead during group exercises, and I've also got sniper training."

"Good," Shiro said. He was glad to have a diverse range of skills on the team, but they were lacking in any meaningful combat skills. "I think you're the only one of us with more than basic training on the rifle."

"Oh, Pidge doesn't have any training," Lance said. "He hacked his way into the Garrison as a transfer student. Started in second year. I found that out last night. He's like a conspiracy nut who was right about his conspiracy."

Shiro found himself brought up short for the second time during the interview. He was going to have to get the full story on that. He found himself feeling tense, as if these basic unknowns were more monumental than they were. He took a few deep breaths.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Pidge has a largely short range weapon, that's… also a grappling hook. I'll have him work with Keith. I'll have you work with Hunk, though I'm sure his crew serve weapon is a bit different from the rifle."

"Is that what he got?" Lance asked. "That's great. I mean hands down, he's the strongest guy on the team, so I bet he can handle that just fine. I'll definitely help him with that."

"Any weaknesses or things you need to work on?" Shiro asked.

Lance frowned, and Shiro found himself tamping down a spike of irritation at his nonresponse.

"I just need to know where we're starting from," Shiro said, calmly. "We may have been chosen by ancient magic lions, but I don't think any of us are exactly ready to be Paladins.

"Well I mean, you are," Lance said.

Shiro quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh, well, um, I've got ADD," Lance said quietly. "And I don't have my meds." Then he got animated. "But it doesn't matter. I wasn't allowed them anyways in the simulator, and look where I am now. It's actually a good thing, I can get hyper focused when I'm flying."

"You needed medication for the classroom though?" Shiro asked.

"I could have gotten by without," Lance said.

"That's good to hear," Shiro said. "There's a lot we're going to have to catch up on. I need to know if you're having trouble keeping up."

"I won't," Lance said. "Have trouble that is."

"But if you do you'll tell me, so that I can make sure you get the information you need," Shiro said.

"Oh, yeah," Lance said. "But it won't be necessary. Because I've got this."

"Good," Shiro said. He picked up another tablet and communicator earpiece. "These are yours. I've got a questionnaire on there. It's a self assessment. Navigation and flight skills and health and stuff like that. Same as everything else, I just need to know where you're starting from. Tap the communicator to open the channel, say a name to open a direct line."

"Roger that, Sir," Lance said. "Um, Shiro."

"Go ahead and head to the bridge," Shiro said. "Coran's going to show us to our quarters later and we can all get a bit of rest." Or at least the rest of them could. Shiro had more stuff he needed to work out with the princess.

"Actually there was another thing," Lance said as he got up. Shiro stood as well.

"What's that?" Shiro asked.

"I'm Hunk and Pidge's team lead," Lance said. "And I was in small unit leadership at the Garrison. If you need…"

"It's a small team Lance. I think I have it covered. Besides, you've got enough on your plate. I'll see you tomorrow morning for training." The team lead who didn't notice one of his crew had completely missed first years foundational courses probably shouldn't be bragging about the position.

* * *

Stupid stupid stupid. Why did he have to tell him about the ADD? 'You've got enough on your plate.' Stupid.

"How'd it go?" Hunk asked. He and Pidge were crouched next to an open access panel and Pidge was talking into his new communicator, probably with the Princess who wasn't in the command room.

"It went great," Lance said. "Hey, congrats on your Bayard. Action stars always look their most badass when they're lugging around a crew serve weapon. Yours truly is going to be helping you get settled with it."

"Great," Hunk said, very unenthusiastically. He shoved his arm into the access panel up to his shoulder and twisted something and the whole thing started to glow.

"How's that look on your end princess?" Pidge asked.

Whatever her response, Pidge motioned to the section of wall that had covered the access panel and Hunk lifted it back into place.

Coran looked up from the main control panel. "You four ready to get settled for the night?"

"Please tell me we get our own rooms," Pidge said.

"You do indeed," Coran said. "Come on, I'll show you the way to the Paladin's quarters."

"Shouldn't we say goodnight to the Princess?" Lance asked, eager to see her once more.

Pidge groaned.

"Ignore him," Keith said.

"Hey," Lance said. "People should be ignoring you."

Keith rolled his eyes at him dismissively and Lance opened his mouth to tell him where he could stick his eye roll when Coran cleared his throat and said, "Right this way, Paladins."

The Paladins quarters were close to the bridge, and each of the five doors in the hallway were marked with a slash of color that correspond to each of the lions. Walking into the room with the blue slash, Lance found a bed tucked into an alcove in the wall with pull out storage overhead. There was a desk and a small attached bathroom. He was a bit disappointed to find that there was only a shower stall and no tub. There were a few products left out on the counter and Lance hoped at least one of them was a moisturizer.

He set the tablet on the desk and it propped itself up and started projecting a holographic keyboard that had the qwerty alphabet on it and Lance figured that Pidge had somehow been involved. Using the tablet was somewhat intuitive and Lance pulled up the questionnaire before he could forget to do it. He had no idea how Shiro had found the time to type it up. There was a very long list of onboard tasks, combat proficiencies, health questions, and other random space based questions like 'Understanding of habitable atmospheric conditions,' or 'Zero-g personal movement proficiency.' Lance spent over an hour filling it out. There was a lot of stuff he was pretty sure Shiro knew wasn't second year material, so he didn't feel too bad for selecting 'No Proficiency,' for a lot of them.

The last question though wasn't about any sort of proficiency or medical condition. 'Due to the nature of our departure and our current endeavor, it is unlikely that we will return to Earth, or have communication with Earth, in the near future. Do you anticipate any personal, or family related issues that will be arise from this absence that will significantly impact your psychological wellbeing?' Lance wrote in 'No,' before he could really think about it and sent it off as he felt his mood plummet.

The idea that he'd never be a Garrison pilot didn't bother him. He was doing something far more awesome, but he honestly had no idea how long it would be before he ever saw his family again. A more morbid thought occurred to him. He didn't know if he'd ever see them again. They weren't just a call away. He wouldn't see them in a few months for Winter break. How old were the twins going to be the next time he saw them. How long until Uncle Lance was just a distant memory. How many weddings was he going to miss? What were they all thinking? Veronica had to already know that he was missing. They'd have no idea what happened.

The Garrison had probably watched the Blue Lion take off. Might have even seen it go through the wormhole. But they had no idea that Lance was onboard, and even if they did, they weren't about to tell his family that. He was just AWOL. He'd snuck out in the middle of the night and was never seen again. What would that do to them? What would they think of him? They just wouldn't know. They might not ever know.

Lance could feel himself spiraling. He pushed himself away from the desk and paced around for a bit. He wasn't going to start his space adventure by letting his anxiety back in and without his therapist to help get him right in the head. He reminded himself that there wasn't anything he could do about his family. He reminded himself that there wasn't any use in worrying about it. He focused on the amazing things he was going to do. Lance Sanchez saved the Earth and fought aliens. Lance Sanchez traveled the stars. Lance was going to be strong for his family, so that they'd never even need to know about the Galra.

Hunk and Pidge were his team, and they'd probably read the same question that Lance had. He was their team lead. Heroes didn't get bogged down, they kept positive. They always had a good one-liner to lighten the mood. They took care of the people around them. He took a deep breath and walked out the door and into the hallway. He knocked on the door with the yellow stripe.

"Come in," Hunks voice called out as if there wasn't a big metal door in-between them. Said metal door opened of its own volition. Hunk was at his desk with his tablet.

"How's it going?" Lance asked. "If you've figured out quintessence yet, I'm going to have to ask you to avoid blowing up anything with it, at least for tonight."

"Are we going to need to be able to do all of these things?" Hunk said, looking up from his tablet. "Because there's stuff on here I hope I never have to do, much less get proficient at."

"Space walk?" Lance asked

"Among other things," Hunk said.

"I think some things they just want to know who knows what so that they know who to assign to what. I don't think we all have to be proficient at everything. But hey, that last question, when you get to it, don't worry too much about things you can't change, and if you need to talk to someone about anything, I've got you buddy."

"Well that's ominous," Hunk said scrolling to the bottom of the questionnaire and reading the question. "Oh," he said.

"Yeah," Lance said.

"I mean my initial plan was to get in the development program which would have meant spending a couple of years on the moon," Hunk said.

"But you would have had contact at least," Lance said.

"Yeah," Hunk said.

"Look," Lance said, but Hunk interrupted him.

"You already said it," Hunk said. "We've got to make sure Earth's safe. But if someone else comes along who's a better Paladin, I'm giving this up in a heartbeat."

Lance didn't think fate worked like that.

"Sure buddy," Lance said. "We'd be hard pressed to find a better engineer though."

"We'll see how long it takes me to get caught up with all of this alien tech," Hunk said, and here he did at least sound a bit eager.

"No time at all," Lance said. "Just not tonight, okay? I don't think there's going to be a lot of sleep in our future, so get it while you can."

"Oh, I'm exhausted," Hunk said. "No argument tonight."

"Yeah, well, goodnight," Lance said. "Take your communicator if you go anywhere."

"Night Lance."

Next he knocked on Pidge's door. No response. He knocked a bit louder, because he sincerely doubted that the little gremlin had gone to sleep at a decent hour. There was some sort of a grunt from inside that seemed to tell the door to open. Pidge was at his desk with his over ear headphones around his neck and his laptop and Altean tablet open side by side.

"You going to be able to charge that?" Lance asked, referring to the laptop, but eyeing the headphones longingly. He didn't have his own. Pidge was the only one who really had any personal belongings when they left earth.

"Hunk's going to work on it," Pidge said. "It should last me another day though."

"I was worried about my phone," Lance said.

"We'll take care of it," Pidge said. "Might just do a data transfer onto some Altean tech though."

"You finish the questionnaire?" Lance asked.

"Yep," Pidge said.

"If that last one becomes relevant, you can talk to me if you need to," Lance said. "I know a lot about dealing with stress and worries about your families."

Pidge shook his head. "I'm out here because of my family," Pidge said. He huffed a breath. "Shiro already knows this. My last name's Holt."

"That's what this was all about?" Lance asked. "They're your family?"

"My dad and my brother," Pidge said.

"Oh my god," Lance said. The whole hacking his way into the Garrison suddenly seemed a lot less crazy. "Look, if you need anything-"

"I'm where I need to be," Pidge said. "I just need to find them."

"So much stuff makes sense now," Lance said. "Wait, so you took on an assumed name. What else was fake? Because you sort of look twelve."

"I'm fourteen," Pidge said indignantly.

"Oh my god you're a baby," Lance said, literally horrified.

"I'm fourteen!" Pidge said again.

"Yeah," Lance said. "You're fourteen."

"Look, we're both kids, so you can get off your high horse," Pidge said.

"Yeah, I'm seventeen," Lance said, pointing at himself. "You. Are. A. Baby," he said while making a rocking motion with his arms.

"That doesn't matter," Pidge said. "Look, what are you going to do? Send me back to Earth? I went AWOL. They've started an investigation. Don't forget everything I've done, at age fourteen. I covered my tracks but there's only so much scrutiny I can survive. They know what I did and they've probably figured out what I got into. If I go back, they're going to make me disappear."

"You're a child in a war zone," Lance said.

"Everywhere's a warzone," Pidge said.

"Yeah, well there's a matter of degree," Lance said. "You could stay in the castle."

"The castle's ground zero," Pidge said. "What, you want to just drop me off at a random planet at the edge of the solar system and hope the Galra never show up? Hope there's another green Paladin waiting for you there? I'm not going home until I get my family back, and I'm not going to let you or anyone else stop me."

Lance dropped his head into his hands and gripped at his hair a bit. He took a deep breath in and let it out in a woosh. "Okay," he said. "I mean it's not okay, but okay." He looked at his watch. "It is super late, and we've been up since about sunrise," he said.

"I've got too much to do," Pidge said.

"You've got too much you need to do or too much you want to do?" Lance said.

"Our next mission could hinge on me being able to hack Galra tech," Pidge said.

"Our next mission could hinge on you staying awake," Lance said. "I haven't seen any caffeine products here."

Pidge frowned. "That's a problem," he agreed.

"Good night?" Lance asked.

"Good night," Pidge sighed, actually sounding tired. Then he turned and pointed a finger in his face. "You're not the boss of me," he said indignantly.

"Uh huh," Lane said. "Get some sleep."

The gremlin grumbled as he walked out. "And keep your communicator on you if you go anywhere," he said as the door closed.

He walked a bit down the corridor and eyed Gyeong's door. He tapped the communicator on his ear. "Shiro?"

There wasn't any indication that it had worked until Shiro's voice came on in his ear.

"Lance? Everything alright, Cadet?… Or Paladin, rather."

"Yeah," Lance said. "Or, no, um." Hecking eloquent Sanchez. "Pidge mentioned he told you he's Commander Holt's son?"

"It came up," Shiro said.

"Did he tell you he's fourteen?" Lance asked.

There was a pause on the other end.

"That did not come up," Shiro said. He sighed. "Thanks for the heads up. I'll take it from here."

"Roger that," Lance said. "Do I just tap this again, or…"

"One way to find out," Shiro said.

"Right," Lance said, tapping the earpiece, and then belatedly, "Goodnight," he said as if Shiro could still hear him. Stupid. Lance Sanchez didn't have trouble talking to anyone. Looking at Gyeong's door again he steeled himself and knocked. The door opened a moment later to reveal a sweaty Keith. He'd ditched the jacket for what looked like an impromptu workout and Lance noticed something he hadn't when they'd changed into their Paladin armor.

"You lost weight," Lance said.

"What?" Gyeong asked.

"Why are you working out?" Lance asked.

"I was bored?"

"Well stop it?"

"What?"

"You really were eating nothing but ramen and canned soup," Lance accuse. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that's not healthy."

"What?"

"I can see your ribs through your shirt," Lance said. "You know what? Yeah. You're on double rations."

"What are you talking about?" Gyeong asked. "We don't have rations, we just take as much food goo as we want from the dispenser."

"Yeah, well you're eating more of it," Lance said. "And take it easy until you're not… this," he said, waving his hands around.

Gyeong's face darkened. "Are you making fun of me?" He asked.

"No, you're actually-"

"You need to take this seriously," Gyeong said icily.

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked. "I am taking this seriously."

"No," Gyeong said. "You're acting like everything's some grand adventure. This is real life, Lance, you're going to get yourself killed if you don't get that."

"Hah," Lance said pointing at him. "Hah, hah, that's rich coming from the washout. I'm taking this very seriously. I'm even…" He was about to tell Gyeong all about how he'd been checking in on the others, like a good team lead, but then he remembered Shiro's earlier dismissal. "Did you tell Shiro that I don't take things seriously?"

"What?" Gyeong asked. "No, I-"

"Can it mullet," Lance said. "I don't need you undermining me."

"That's not my name," Gyeong said, as if he were confused by it.

"I know what your name is," Lance said. "I'm just calling you by your defining personality trait."

"My hair isn't a personality trait," Gyeong said.

"For you it is," Lance said.

"I don't need to listen to this!"

"Yeah, well stay out of my business," Lance said, turning to storm off. "Finish your questionnaire, keep your communicator on you, and fucking eat something so you don't pass out in training tomorrow."

He didn't know how he was going to work with the guy.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me so far. Let me know what you think. An alternative title for next chapter is: Some Caffeine Required.


	2. Memory of Light

A/N: The title of this chapter comes from the final book of the Wheel of Time series. Just a bit of a warning, there's mentions of religion in this chapter. I wasn't really planning on going there, but it just didn't seem realistic for a character I'd established as growing up religious to not have his religious perspective affected by everything going on.

* * *

Memory of Light

Lance had figured that if everything on the tablet had been translated into Spanish for him that it probably had some sort of native translation program, and if it had that, along with the camera in the corner, then it probably had the same point and translate features that his phone did back on Earth. This was nice, since he was able to figure out what the various products in the bathroom were. He probably shouldn't have assumed that whatever was good for an alien would be good for him, but it had been a long day and he wasn't going to fight a war without skincare. He rubbed a bit of moisturizer onto the inside of his wrist and waited to see if anything started burning. It was fine. The soap also seemed to be safe so he washed his face and moisturized before saying his prayers and getting into bed.

Generally speaking, daydreaming was most often the cause of Lance missing actual dreaming, and that first night on the ship was no exception. After fantasizing for a while about the cool awesome things he was going to do as a Paladin who fought in space battles and wooed alien princesses, Lance checked his watch to find that he'd been lying in bed for over an hour. It had been fun, but he did actually need to sleep. Sitting up in bed he crossed his legs and tried some deep breathing and some mindfulness.

Eventually, he must have fallen asleep, because he found himself dreaming about an angry bird that kept swooping at him and squawking really loud. The dream seemed to go on forever until he woke up and realized that there was an alarm going. His first thought was that there was an evacuation drill at the Garrison, but then Princess Allura's voice came in over the speakers, talking about being under attack.

Lance shot out of his bed. The lights seemed to have already come on with the alarm.

"Hurry Paladins, we can't take much more," Princess Allura said.

Lance found his pants and started hopping around to put them on.

"Oh no!" Coran's voice now. "The princess is dead, her head came right off."

Lance's foot caught on the hem and he lost his balance. Falling forward face first onto his desk, one might have thought that his hands would have shot up to protect his face, but instead they had decided to keep gripping his pants.

"Oh, if only you had been quicker!" Coran continued. "Now we're all doomed."

Lance rolled his eyes. He'd gotten the impression that Coran thought them a bit primitive, but the guy wasn't even trying to trick them properly. Maybe Alteans lacked deception skills.

By the time he got to the hangar, Princess Allura was already yelling at the others, with Shiro, the only one in his Paladin armor beside her.

"And where have you been?" She asked him. The cross look she gave him would have probably made him fidget if he wasn't already peeved about the wakeup.

"After your head fell off I thought I might as well stop my nosebleed," Lance said, going for nonchalant.

"What happened to you? Did you and Keith get into a fight?" Hunk asked.

Gyeong gave an incredulous 'No!' as Lance said indignantly, "Well if we did, I wouldn't be the one with the bloody nose."

"Enough," Shiro said. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Lance said. He was not telling anyone that he'd slammed his face against his desk, and he was hoping they'd just chalk it up to having just come from the dry dry desert. He was worried there would be swelling later though.

"Alright," Shiro said. "All four of you. We're going to turn the alarm back on, and you're going to run to the armory, get into your armor and back to your lions as fast as you can."

Hunk groaned.

"Should Gyeong be running while he's recovering from malnutrition?" Lance asked.

"I don't have malnutrition," Gyeong said.

"If he wasn't wearing that jacket, you'd be able to see his ribs," Lance said.

"Stay out of it," Gyeong ground out.

"Keith?" Shiro said, motioning for Gyeong to come over.

Red faced, Gyeong walked over towards Shiro, who gave him an appraising look.

"Punch a few new holes in that belt?" Shiro asked quietly.

"You're the one who was a prisoner," Gyeong said defensively.

"It does seem like they fed me though," Shiro said.

"I'm fine," Gyeong said.

Shiro nodded and looked at Coran who was holding some sort of device that he activated. Suddenly, the alarm started all over again. If there was one thing Lance had going for him, it was that he was fit; he might not dominate on the track as much as he did in the pool, but he would have placed a bet that he was probably the fastest runner in the castle. Though maybe the Alteans were like Vulcans, and that was a bad bet.

Hunk though, was just barely at the minimum for the Garrison, so like a good leader, Lance stayed just ahead of him, yelling encouragement. Gyeong actually was fast, and he took off past them, while Pidge, looking miserable, seemed to have decided to keep up with them.

"I know you're faster than that," Lance said. "Go partner with Gyeong getting your armor on."

He couldn't see Pidge's face, but he knew he was getting an eye roll for that. Pidge sped up, her robotic pet zooming after her. Hunk was the one who told him he was making a wrong turn. Probably for the best that he hadn't run off ahead of everybody else. He and Hunk made it to the armory and scrambled into the black under suits and leg pieces and then helped each other into their chest pieces. By that point, Gyeong and Pidge were running out the door.

"Come on, Hunk," Lance said as they took off again. "This isn't even a mile."

"I'm supposed to warm up first," Hunk complained.

"This is oddly easy to run in," Lance said, unable to figure out why the armor didn't feel cumbersome when it definitely looked like it should be.

They made it back to the hangar to a very disappointed looking Princess Allura.

"Unacceptable," she said. This time, Lance did wilt a bit.

"Did you twist your ankle as well this morning, Paladin?" Shiro asked, looking at Lance.

"You don't leave your slowest guy behind," Lance said, defensively. He suddenly felt like he was being ganged up upon.

"In the field, yes," Shiro said. "But here in the castle, we need lions launching as fast as we can. If that means one of you is the last one out there, then so be it."

"Enough," Princess Allura said. "The most important thing for you to learn right now is to form Voltron."

"That's a bit of an advanced skill, Princess," Coran said. "Perhaps some of the other exercises first?"

"We don't have time," Princess Allura said. "Voltron is ten thousand years late to this war. Everyone to your lions."

There was a bit of grumbling, though not from Lance. Flying was what he really wanted to do anyway, and forming Voltron sounded cool. He felt Blue like a charge underneath his skin as he settled into the pilots seat.

"Ready to rock this?" he asked patting the console to his right.

Blue leapt through the big hangar and out into the Arusian sky where Lance made sure to warm up with a bunch of cool flight tricks. He didn't think Shiro had really seen any of the good maneuvers he'd pulled the day before, so it was time to show off his skill.

"This isn't the time to play games," Gyeong's voice came in over the comms.

"I'm not playing games," Lance said testily, pulling around so his lion could stare down at Gyeong's while also checking to see if Gyeong was broadcasting to everyone. He was relieved to see that he'd started a direct line. "I'm practicing. Got to get used to what this baby can do."

"Whatever, just be ready to form Voltron," Gyeong said.

"Oh, I'm ready, way more ready than you, drop out," Lance said.

"I didn't drop out," Gyeong said angrily.

"You boys ready?" Shiro's lion was broadcasting to everyone.

"Yes, Sir," Lance was quick to say. "Er, Shiro," he added belatedly.

"So does anyone know how to form Voltron?" Hunk asked.

"I don't see a Voltron button in here," Pidge said.

Coran's voice came on. "Voltron's more of a frame of mind than anything else," he said.

"Great," Pidge deadpanned.

"Any more insight for us there?" Hunk asked.

"Well," Coran said, sounding a bit unsure. "When you form Voltron, you all control it together, your minds must act as one mind."

"I don't think I'm drift compatible with Gyeong," Lance said.

"You're a bit more compatible than you might think," the Princess's voice came in a bit higher than normal. She cleared her throat. "You are the chosen paladins of Voltron. Your selection was not random. You were meant to form Voltron together. Focus on your common goal, focus on your bond with your lion, you must work collectively as one."

"We'll give it a go, Princess," Shiro said. "Alright Paladins, start focusing."

Lance started by trying to probe at the recesses of his mind, where he knew that somehow, the Blue Lion was connected to him, then he thought about his goals, like the princess had said. He thought about keeping the Galra from Earth, and his family; he thought about how he was going to save the galaxy. Then he thought about how everyone back on Earth would react when they found out he was a space action hero. And Allura; she would look at him with those big blue eyes as she realized that he was the one for her. They'd go explore the galaxy together. Lance envisioned awesome space battles, and alien worlds that he'd discover, and there wouldn't be anyone there to tell him he couldn't do it.

"I don't think this is working," Hunk said.

With a spike of guilt, Lance realized that he'd stopped focusing on Voltron a while ago.

"We should fly in formation," Gyeong said.

"Good idea," Shiro said, leaving Lance with a scowl on his face. "That'll help us sync up."

So they did that. They flew in formation, and they thought about Voltron, and they waited, and they waited, but nothing seemed to work.

"Maybe we should stack up?" Hunk asked.

"Maybe we should eat some breakfast," Pidge said.

"Head back in," Shiro said. "We'll need to work out what we'll try next."

* * *

Failing to form Voltron had been frustrating. Especially since he had been a Paladin in a distant lifetime. He should have had some sort of leg up, but he was as behind as everyone else.

"Here you go," Shiro said, handing Keith another bowl of food goo.

"I really am alright," Keith said. His stomach was full anyways.

"You were out there for nine months?" Shiro asked.

"It wasn't so bad," Keith said. "I kept busy."

"What were you doing for money?" Shiro asked.

"Scrap metal," Keith said. It had mostly gone to keeping his hover bike going.

"There should have been a food bank in Tucson," Shiro said.

"I was a bit of a fugitive," Keith said.

"Did you see my parents?"

Keith shook his head. "I was over at their place when it happened, but…They were upset. I saw Adam, he said you'd asked him to look after me. He got transferred to Kenya though."

Shiro looked shocked for a moment. "Adam," he said, a little breathlessly, and Keith suddenly felt tense,

"Your fiancee," he said. "Remember?"

"Yes," Shiro said, suddenly. "Yes, of course. How is he?"

"Sad?" That was the best Keith could figure. "Should I have called him when I found you?" Keith asked.

"No," Shiro said. "No. You did everything right. I'm more concerned with your health right now."

"I'm fine," Keith said. "Really. Things sort of sucked for a while, but now it's alright."

"I'm sorry you went through that," Shiro said.

"It wasn't your fault," Keith said. He thought for a moment. "You came back." That's what was important.

Shiro gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I'm going to talk with our Altean hosts. You should go bond a bit with your new teammates."

Keith groaned, looking at the others at the other side of the kitchen. Lance was talking animatedly with Hunk while Pidge sat besides them tinkering with something Keith wasn't so sure she should be tinkering with. Was that Galran drone helping her?

"Consider it a team building exercise," Shiro said. "You can commiserate about the food." He walked away to find the Princess and Coran.

Keith grabbed his bowl and walked towards the others. Lance was talking about the Princess.

"So," Keith said, too loudly. "Food goo."

This seemed, miraculously, to be the right thing to say. Hunk had a lot to say about the food goo, and Keith didn't have to say anything at all. He could just stand there and listen without it being awkward. Lance also had several opinions about the stuff and Keith let himself enjoy Lance's energy. Every now and then though, Lance would glance at Keith's bowl, and Keith would find himself taking another bite. It wasn't good tasting, at all, but it was easy on the stomach, and he knew what could happen when you hadn't been eating much of anything and then you had a big meal. The others didn't understand why it was a bad idea for him to just gorge himself like he could make up for the past nine months in a few sittings. Keith had figured it out when he was eleven and he'd busted the padlock that had kept the refrigerator shut at one of the really bad homes he'd stayed in.

"Enough time wasting," the Princesses voice came from the doorway. "It's time for training."

Lance's voice dropped an octave, like it often did when he talked to the Princess, and he made a comment showing the Princess a few things on the training deck. Pidge accidentally spilled her drink in Lance's lap. Too bad the suit was waterproof.

So they trained. The castle had a big open bay for training that had all sorts of gadgets to change up the environment and provide obstacles and 'enemies,' that Hunk was probably planning to take apart. If Keith were honest with himself, and even with himself that was a big if, the exercises were a bit much, and he figured that he'd have probably done better a year prior.

Training went poorly. The whole point was for them to learn to work as a team, but they all kept messing up. Their first exercise had involved drones that flew around and shot at them, and they were supposed to shield each other to beat it, but somewhere along the way, he'd started arguing with Lance again, who'd tried to take charge in the face of a suddenly quiet Shiro, who'd broken from the group to just start destroying the drones.

The Princess hadn't been happy. The Princess from the day before was gone, and Keith felt like she was trying to channel the Garrison cadre from Hell Week.

Training moved on with each failure though. They guided each other through an invisible shock maze, just his luck that he got paired up with an irate Lance. They fought a robotic gladiator, ostensibly together, Lance again attempting to take charge, Hunk showing a great deal of hesitance, Shiro and now himself trying to charge the gladiator. It went about as well as the other exercises.

Next it was back to the cockpit.

"This next exercise will help you bond with your lions," Coran said.

Somehow. They were essentially supposed to fly blind, only using their connection with their lions to see through their sensors. Keith didn't know how it happened, but Lance managed to goad the both of them into flying straight into the ground without ever getting any sense of position from their Lions.

Next came weapons training, where Lance and Keith didn't have to work together. Their bayards had a training mode, where Keith's sword was blunted, the two rifles shot harmless blasts, and Pidge's weird cutting/shocking tool that also doubled as a grappling hook just made a zapping sound when it hit its target. Shiro's arm didn't seem to have a training mode, so he worked alone with the gladiator, which had settings for one on one. Keith found his eyes sliding over to where Lance was working with Hunk. They seemed to be doing alright.

"Is this right?" Pidge asked, holding her Bayard out in front of her.

"Your stance is wrong," Keith said.

"And…"

"You're leaving yourself open," Keith said. "It means I can do this." Using his Bayard he knocked hers away and placed the palm of his hand on her helmet and shoved. She fell over backwards.

"So what am I doing wrong?" Pidge asked, getting back to her feet, glaring a bit at Keith.

"I told you," Keith said. "Your stance-"

"How do I fix it?" Pidge asked.

"Do it like I showed you," Keith said.

"You are the worst," Pidge said.

Lance seemed to think so.

Keith was pretty sure their next exercise, trust falls, had been Shiro's idea. Allura though, had definitely placed Keith next to Lance. Keith realized he'd been placed next to Lance in most of their exercises that day. The Princess was meddling. Lance was supposed to be falling into his arms, the first time Keith would ever touch his soulmate in this lifetime, but even this managed to go wrong.

"Don't drop me," Lance said, as he started to rock back.

"Don't fall then," Keith said flippantly. He didn't know why.

Lance turned his head, for some reason, looking behind himself at Keith; he twisted a bit too much and managed to fall in the wrong direction. Keith tried, he really did, but Lance still fell. This was somehow Keith's fault. All they'd done all day was fight. Keith glared at the Princess when she started yelling at them again for their failure.

"Alright," Shiro said, after they'd been at it for far too long. "Time to hydrate. Change out of your armor, you won't need it for the next few exercises. Hit the showers, get cleaned up, I'll be in a meeting with Princess Allura."

Keith managed not to get into an argument with Lance while they were in the attached locker room. He thought Lance was too upset even to say anything.

* * *

"I don't think this common enemy tactic is working," Princess Allura said.

"We're not ready to face the Galra, Princess," Shiro said, shaking his head. "They need something to bond over. You're it for now. I've seen plenty of Garrison teams thrown together by a tyranical CO. It's good in a training environment. There's something else I wanted to talk to you about though."

"Go ahead," Princess Allura said.

"How difficult is it to replace a Paladin?" Shiro asked.

"Lance stays," Princess Allura was quick to say. "He is very important. I know he has been fighting with Keith, and that's not what we need, but they are both very important."

"Princess?" Coran asked, and he had a speculative look in his eyes. Princess Allura shook her head.

"I'm actually talking about Pidge," Shiro said.

"Pidge?" Princess Allura asked. "I thought Pidge showed a great deal of promise. His skills proved very useful in defeating the Galra yesterday."

"I found out last night that Pidge is fourteen years old," Shiro said. "He's still a child. He's sort of stuck out here with us, but I'd rather he wasn't directly in the line of fire."

"Oh," Princess Allura said. "That's…" She shook her head. "Fate doesn't care what his age is," she said. "He was chosen for a reason. Replacing a Paladin of Voltron is no easy task. The last time we lost a Paladin we went ten thousand pheebs without Voltron. We don't have much choice in the matter. We need all five paladins."

"There must have been shorter turnovers in the past though, right?" Shiro asked. "There've never been direct replacements?"

"There have," Coran said. "But it isn't at our own whim. Change happens when it's meant to happen."

"So was Voltron meant to be dormant for so long as the Galra ravaged the Galaxy?" Shiro asked.

The two Alteans shared another glance.

"That was different," Princess Allura said. "What's important is that we cannot just replace Pidge. Pidge is a part of Voltron. We can try to mitigate his exposure. For now though, let's focus on forming Voltron."

Shiro sighed. "I think I might have some more ideas on that one," he said.

* * *

Pidge had gone off to be by herself after changing. She knew that no one had been staring at her, but she still felt the need to get out from under their gazes. There'd been a girls locker room even, but she hadn't been able to just tell them she didn't belong with the boys. She should tell them. It was getting to be too much. Pidge was getting to be too much. Pidge was going to find her family, but Pidge didn't really need to pass as a boy anymore. That had been for the Garrison. There weren't any big secrets anymore. The only thing she was hiding was her gender.

The thing was, was that Pidge had never really had to come out before. She'd figured things out with her family's help at a young age and then her dad had been transferred soon after and she'd been going to a new school where no one had ever known that Katie Holt used to go by a different name. Hormone blockers had helped to make sure that she'd never have to worry about it. Now though, she was worried about it.

A lot of her worries centered around Lance. He was already making a big deal about her being fourteen. Would that get worse if he knew she was a girl? Moreover, Lance had made no secret that he was Catholic, and Pidge had always been a bit wary of people who were religious. She knew mostof them were fine with trans people, but… you never really knew. Keith seemed angry about everything, and she didn't really know him well at all, Hunk was way too much into her business, and Shiro (who was homo-romantic and of everyone she was most confident of his support) had forgotten her. Who knew what Altean culture had to say about gender identities. They seemed nice, but maybe that was what all the airlocks around the ship were for.

It didn't help that she'd had a roaring headache all day. She'd been going to pick up more caffeine pills that weekend in town, (caffeine wasn't allowed for Garrison cadets) but she'd never exactly gotten around to it. At least she still had her hormone blockers. Though those too would run out.

Rover nudged her. She'd added a few basic personality protocols the night before when adrenaline had still been keeping her up. She reached up to pat it. Rover toned out a proximity alert.

"Hey dude," Lance said, suddenly behind her, causing her to tense up, in spite of rover's warning. "We've got more training stuff."

"Be right there," Pidge said.

She headed back into the training room, trying to gather up some of the energy she'd been lacking all day. The room had transformed once more and now had a sunken area filled with cushions.

Shiro was back, still in his armor. "Before we get started," he said. "I wanted to address the matter of our little interviews last night. The point of those was for me to get a better idea of who I'm working with. That was the venue where I should have found out that Pidge is fourteen."

"Woah, what?" Hunk asked, looking at her askance. Everyone was looking at her. She glared at Lance.

"If anyone else left anything out, any limitations, I need to know about it," Shiro said.

"My age is not a limitation," Pidge said.

"We'll talk about that later," Shiro said. "If anyone has anything they need to talk to me about, I've got an open door policy."

He paused there as if waiting for some sort of admission. Pidge wasn't about to come out right then and there after that.

"Alright," Allura said. "You've all shown abysmal teamwork so far, and ordinarily we wouldn't even be attempting our next exercise until you were much further along, but we're going to need to move fast if you hopeless lot are going to make this work sometime in this decapheeb."

"It's not like you have a manual for how to form Voltron," Keith said.

"Forming Voltron comes from within," Princess Allura said. "And so far I haven't seen much within any of you."

Coran cut in. "You might find this next exercise a bit relaxing actually. We've got a nice comfortable area for you to rest in right here, and we've got these handy devices right here to help you meld your minds."

"Like Vulcans?" Lance said, sounding excited. "I'll totally mind meld with you Princess."

Pidge decided to step away from Lance in case Allura needed some room to kick his butt.

"This exercise doesn't involve the Princess, Paladin," Shiro said.

"Just you five," Coran said. "In order."

"There's an order?" Hunk asked.

"Well of course," Coran said. "You didn't think you would just form Voltron at random, did you? Shiro is the head of Voltron. Keith and Lance are the right arm and leg of Voltron respectively, with Pidge and Hunk on the left."

"Wow," Pidge said, entirely non-plussed. "It's almost like there should be a manual." She nudged Keith in the side. He looked at her with an inquisitive look and she remembered she was still annoyed with him.

So they sat in a semi-circle, with Pidge and Hunk to Shiro's left and Keith and Lance to the right. Coran handed out five headsets.

"What exactly do these do?" Hunk asked.

"They connect you, similarly to how you'll be connected through your lions when you form Voltron, but here, the device will help you attune to one another."

"But can people see what's in our heads?" Keith asked, his usual scowl firmly in place.

"On the surface level, yes," Coran said. "Just take a moment to get used to it. There should be no secrets or barriers between Paladins."

Pidge didn't want a look inside of Lance's head, one guess what was in there, and she didn't want anyone looking inside of hers. Somehow though, forming Voltron had become important to finding her family, so she'd just have to put it on and think about Voltron. An image appeared in front of her as she put on the headgear. It was the picture she kept in her log book, her and Matt.

"Oh, hey, I keep learning new stuff about Pidge," Lance said. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend back home."

Lance could see the image, so she cleared it from her mind. Lance wasn't thinking horrible things about the princess, as she'd suspected, but instead, much like her, he was thinking about his family. Pidge focused on Voltron. She probed around and… felt someone probing around in her head.

"Get out of my head, Hunk!" The feeling of it did nothing good for her headache.

"I thought there were no secrets," said Hunk.

"Paladins must be open with each other," Coran said.

"Damn Gyeong, what sort of gory sci-fi movies do you watch?" Lance asked. "Bit gratuitous there."

The image in Keith's mind had been of some sort of battle on an alien planet. Keith himself was white faced and scowling.

"Let's focus on your lions," Coran said. "Everyone focus on your lions, concentrate on the bond you share."

The images changed. The five lions stood proud.

"Now, go ahead and merge them together, merge your minds together. Five lions become Voltron, five paladins become a single joined force."

The images of the lions started to converge.

"Yes!" Coran said, sounding excited. "That's it, keep focusing. Keep yourselves focused on the union."

Pidge could feel them in her mind, four presences that crowded in. She didn't need the four boys brains in her own. She didn't need to be opened up to them. It was an invasion and she couldn't deal with it.

"No," Pidge said, ripping the headgear off of her head.

"Hey," Lance said. "We almost had it."

"Pidge?" Shiro asked.

"I can't do this right now."

"Yes, you can-" Lance started before Shiro held up his hand to stop him.

"What's going on?" Shiro asked.

I have even more secrets in my head. "I'm just really tired, okay? We've been trying to form Voltron all morning."

Shiro glanced back at Allura.

"You're tired?" Allura asked with scorn dripping from her like tar. "An Altean child of your age wouldn't have any trouble keeping up. Do you know who's tired? The countless people who have been enslaved or left broken by the Galra."

"Yeah, I know," Pidge said. "My family for example."

"Maybe it's time for lunch," Shiro said. "No use training on an empty stomach."

Allura scowled. "Very well," she said. "But this time you eat as a team."

So they headed off through the castle for the kitchens.

"Hey," Lance said, sidling up to Pidge. "You alright?"

"Why'd you tell Shiro?" Pidge asked, angrily.

"Because he needed to know," Lance said. "Did you think it didn't matter?"

"Look, I'm not going to let you or anyone else keep me from finding my family," Pidge said.

"And when you find them, I'll be right there to bust down the doors and get them out," Lance said. "But if you think we're just going to ignore the bit where you're a kid, then you've got another thing coming."

"Just stay out of my business," Pidge said.

* * *

They found a dining room next to the kitchens where Coran had already left a bunch of food goo for them.

"Sit in team order," the Princess said, causing Lance to have to get up again.

"Oh man," Hunk said. "Even eating is training now."

"Funny you should say that," Coran said as they took their seats. He looked at the tablet he was carrying and pressed a button. Suddenly, manacles snapped around their wrists. They were literally chained to each other, wrist to wrist. Lance's right arm was just manacled to the table.

"What the hecking hey," Lance said indignantly. "I'm chained to Gyeong?" He yanked his arm away, only to have Keith's arm follow.

"Paladins must be able to work together," Coran said. "And if you can't, you'll find it a bit difficult to eat."

The Princess sat down at the head of the table. "Well, do get started," she said. "You were too hungry to train, so let's get the meal done with." Lance wasn't sure how things were going between him and the princess, but he'd started to realize that if they were meant to be together, then he was in for a bit of a bumpy ride.

Lance went to grab his spoon, but suddenly his hand went in the other direction. Of course, Gyeong would be right handed, either that or he was just messing with Lance.

"Watch it," Lance said.

"Am I not allowed to eat?" Gyeong asked. "You were very worried about it earlier."

"Oh no," Lance said, snatching up his spoon. "Don't let me stop you, just don't get in my way." His spoonful of goo was suddenly jerked away and then there was a green splatter on the table. "Hey, you did that on purpose," he accused.

"I'm just trying to get a bite in," Gyeong said.

"The point is to work together," Coran said.

There was another splatter from down the table and Lance heard Pidge shout "Hunk!"

"Do all humans complain this much?" the Princess asked.

"The past couple of days have been stressful," Shiro said.

Keith stood up, jerking Lance's arm over. "We didn't come here for you to treat us like prisoners you could just toy with, like… like…"

"Like toy prisoners!" Lance said excitedly, standing up as well.

"Yes! Thank you, Lance," Keith said, and Lance turned to look at him, not sure he'd heard him right.

"You do not yell at the Princess!" Coran yelled back at them.

"Oh, the princess of what?" Pidge asked. "We're the only ones out here, and she's no princess of ours."

Lance watched the Princess scoop up some food goo with her spoon and fling it at Pidge's face, but it took him a moment to process what had happened.

"Get her Pidge," Keith said.

Pidge returned a volley, but Coran stepped in with a tray to block and stuck a spoon of his own in the food goo and flung a wide arc that hit all of them. There was food goo in Lance's hair.

"Oh, it's on," Hunk said.

Keith was flinging food goo. Shiro was flinging food goo!

Lance moved for his spoon, but his hand caught on his manacle.

"Help me out a bit," Lance told Gyeong. He didn't want to be the only one not throwing food goo. Miraculously, Gyeong dipped down to give Lance the reach.

"Allura, on my mark," Lance said, getting a scoop. "Now." Together their arms arced out flinging twin globs of green slime that landed on her shoulder.

Eventually, there was no more food goo to throw, and everyone was laughing, and Lance had not been prepared for this to be a part of his space adventure. He had a considerable amount of food on his face and he wondered what skincare properties the stuff might have.

The Princess sat back down, smiling for the first time that day. Was she smiling at Lance? "It seems you all can work together," she said.

Gyeong even smiled at that. He turned his head and looked at Lance and, still smiling, he mumbled something about teamwork. Lance huffed a laugh, and somehow getting Gyeong to smile at him felt like a bigger accomplishment than anything else. He couldn't believe he'd actually managed to work with the guy.

"I actually don't hate you right now," Lance said.

Gyeong's eyes got a bit big, and his face turned red and he turned away, causing Lance to deflate. Well that didn't last long, he thought.

* * *

Their manacles disappeared from around their wrists as everyone laughed and talked about the rollercoaster of a day they'd all had. Hunk helped Pidge get a bit of goop out of his hair while the younger boy bragged to Allura about a particularly good shot he'd gotten in. The night before, Hunk had thought the highlight of the next day would probably be getting to take a look at the wormhole generator. Getting covered in food goo would have probably constituted a bad day any other time, but somehow it was all good. Great even.

"Hey," Hunk said. "Lets go form Voltron now."

A cheer went up from Pidge and Lance.

"A bit of cleanup first," Coran said. "You do not want to clean food goo out of your lions' cockpits."

An hour later, they were back in their armor and splitting off in the hangar towards their own lions. Suddenly the idea of flying in the Yellow Lion was exciting.

"Hey Lance," Hunk said over the comm. "If we're the legs of Voltron, does that mean we literally get to kick alien butt?"

"All the way to the other end of the galaxy," Lance said.

"Let's do this," Pidge said.

"Do this we must," Hunk said, in his very best Yoda impression.

"Star Wars nerf herder," Lance crowed.

"Taking off," Keith said.

"Copy that, Red Robin, you are clear for takeoff," Lance said.

"That is not my callsign," Keith said.

"Saying 'that's not my callsign,' makes it officially your callsign," Lance said.

Hunk sighed, and started counting down towards a blowup.

"You're not even Flight," Keith said.

"All in favor of Red Robin?" Lance asked.

"Aye," Hunk said, because he had to show solidarity. He was the only one.

"Hah," Keith said.

"I'll get one to stick," Lance said.

That went surprisingly well. The red lion took off behind him as Hunk was just getting up the ramp of Yellow. Shiro and Pidge took off next.

"You ready buddy?" Lance asked in a direct channel.

"Ready to form Voltron at least," Hunk said.

"Keep a closer eye on your distance to Pidge this time," Lance said. "You drift a lot."

"Got it," Hunk said. He preferred keeping track of the ships systems instead of telemetry.

They both took off into the Arusian afternoon.

"Alright Paladins," Shiro said. "Let's get into formation."

Hunk joined into the cheer that followed.

They got in order, and flew in a V formation with Shiro at the head, and Hunk and Lance at the back.

"Feel your lions," Coran said. "Connect with your lions, and through your lions connect with each other. Five lions become one."

While keeping an eye on the telemetry to make sure he wasn't going to mess up colossally, Hunk probed around for the connection that Lance had described. He thought there might be something.

"Focus on your intent," Coran said.

'Come on,' Hunk said to himself. 'Form Voltron.'

There weren't any words, but the responding question in his mind was suddenly clear. Why?

'We've got to fight scary space aliens,' Hunk thought.

There was a low discontented rumble that Hunk was sure was just in his head.

"Isn't that what we're here for?" Hunk asked.

"Hunk?" Lance asked. They'd never broken the direct line.

"I got this," Hunk said. I don't got this, he thought.

* * *

Keith tensed up when the Princess started a direct line with him.

"I had a question about what we discussed yesterday," she said.

"Now?" Keith asked.

"I don't think you'll be forming Voltron just yet," the Princess said. "That's why I wanted to ask. You said Rigel Seven was destroyed by the Galra. Did they truly destroy the planet or did they occupy it?"

"Is Coran with you?" Keith asked.

"I'm alone," the Princess said.

"It was destroyed," Keith said. He tried to remember more. He didn't want to remember more. "We didn't know what these two factions wanted, but they did want something on the planet. They both wanted it for themselves. One of them lost, and… They did something to the core."

"I'm sorry," the Princess said.

Keith stayed silent. It wasn't about the planet. The communications panel indicated that the Princess was talking to everyone.

"I think that's enough for now," she said. "Good work today, Paladins. I have one more task for you."

"Anything for you Princess," Lance said.

Keith sighed.

"The Castle of Lions has been keeping a log of intercepted communications for the past ten thousand years," the Princess said.

"I can work on processing that," Pidge piped in.

"Perhaps later," the Princess said. "A great deal of them are distress calls. Requests for aid. There's one planet that reported an attack by the Galra and it doesn't seem to have a great deal of strategic importance based on it's location, so I don't think the Galra would have stuck around after they took what they wanted. It was about forty phoebes ago, so I'd like to send you through. Scout out the area. If the Galra are gone, then the people there might have good information for us."

"And if the Galra are there?" Shiro asked.

"Then I'll trust you to make the decision on how to proceed," the Princess said. "The planet in question is called Rigel Seven."

Keith's breath hitched, and he narrowly avoided saying anything incriminating. He'd already told her that the planet had been destroyed. There wouldn't be anyone there for them to talk to. He didn't want to see it again.

"We're on it," Shiro said. "Alright Paladins, this is an information gathering mission. If we make contact we've got to be diplomatic, I'll handle communications. If we encounter the enemy you will wait for my word on whether we'll engage or fall back."

"Copy that, Team Leader," Lance said excitedly, and Keith, who already had a twisted feeling in his stomach, wished he'd take it seriously.

"The wormhole is opening now," the Princess said.

"Wait," Hunk said. "Should Pidge be going if there are Galra there?"

"No," Pidge said. "We'll just form Voltron when there isn't any danger present."

"We're all going," Shiro said.

Keith grit his teeth and followed as Shiro led the formation through the wormhole.

"Pidge?" Shiro asked.

"The system has twelve planets, two exoplanets, and three asteroid belts," Pidge said. "I've got the seventh planet from the sun, and I'm sending you the vectors."

"Any sign of Galran activity?" Shiro asked.

"Negative," Pidge said.

"Stay in formation," Shiro said.

They shot off towards Rigel Seven.

"What do you think they look like?" Lance asked.

"Who?" Hunk asked.

"The Rigelians," Lance said. "The Alteans look pretty human, and the Galra were humanoid at least."

They hadn't called themselves Rigelians. They'd called themselves an old word from a dead language that meant the Chosen. No one had known why anymore. They'd had ink black skin that had absorbed energy from the sun and their boneless bodies had been vaguely humanoid most of the time, it was just a bit more of a practical structure to assume for a lot of tasks.

"Guys," Hunk said. "I don't think anything's alive down there."

They were close enough, Keith could pull up the picture on his viewer. New memories surfaced, against his will. There definitely wasn't anyone left alive on that planet. The process had only just started when Keith had left the system for the final time. When it became clear they wouldn't be evacuating anyone else. The planet now glowed red and orange where it wasn't blackened char.

"It's a lava planet," Lance said.

"Was this a natural disaster?" Hunk asked.

The devices had landed on the poles. Reports from the ground said that it started with devastating earth quakes. Of course it had all started two weeks earlier when a purple ship had parked itself in orbit and started leveling cities from above.

"I'm no geologist," Pidge said. "But I don't think civilizations form on planets that are this unstable. If they went from being capable of interstellar communication to this in a few decades, I don't think it was natural.

"Any signs of life?" Shiro asked.

"We can circle the planet?" Pidge said. "But I'm not expecting anything."

There'd been two billion people on the planet when the Galra came. It had been obvious from the beginning that they were no match. By the time the first ship had taken off with refugees a few hundred million people had already been killed across three of their largest cities. Keith and Lance had been part of a group warping out of the solar system at the time to explore one of the neighboring systems. He remembered the message they'd received that had called them back immediately to pick up as many civilians as they could. They'd never encountered alien life and the first thing Lance had said over the comms was that it had to be a bad joke from Central.

"There's remains of some structures still standing here and there," Pidge said. "The planet was clearly populated once. We've also got what looks like the remains of a superstructure in orbit, looks like half of some sort of habitat dome."

The Dedarite had been a prototype ship, it was going to ferry the first large generation of settlers to Actic five, the only habitable planet they'd come across in their explorations. It had barely been space worthy when the Galra attacked, but it had been loaded up with as many civilians as they could fit. The Galra had been ignoring the smaller ships. They hadn't been a threat, and one of the Generals organizing the evacuation had speculated that the extermination was a matter of practicality for what they wanted to do on the surface. The Dedarite though hadn't been ignored. It had been preparing for FTL when a fighter had taken out the engines and ruptured the dome. It had been built to ferry a thousand people, but there'd been more than twice that onboard at the time.

"The moon's coming up," Pidge said. "There's the remains of a facility on it. No atmosphere, no life signs."

They'd had the start of a planetary defense system. Land based weapons had difficulty piercing the atmosphere and the heavy ionosphere, so there'd been a small network of satellites, and an addition to the base on the moon had added the most powerful phased matter beam they'd ever created. A single fighter had destroyed it and the rest of the base while it was still charging up.

"That's definitely the remains of a Galra ship in orbit," Pidge said.

When three new ships had appeared, they'd thought that someone had answered their distress call. It hadn't mattered that they all looked the same, the three ships had destroyed the ship that had been bombarding them for over a day. Then five more ships had arrived and there had been a war in orbit, stray beams striking the planet at random.

Keith looked down at the planet below him. Everything was gone, but he could imagine that he could see the small continent he'd called home once. It was during that lull in bombardment that they'd landed a second time, in a canyon where civilians had gathered away from the city. Lance had been in Keith's ear as he'd taken off. They weren't talking to each other, they were just keeping the channel open. Lance's voice the only comfort he had as Keith listened to him help civilians get into safe positions for take off. The bright beam had come out of nowhere streaking just past Keith's own ship and the line had gone dead. He'd never experienced the complete memory of it, he'd never wanted to dwell on it. Now, in orbit over the dead planet, it felt as if it had just happened and Keith found himself keeping an eye on the Blue Lion on the telemetry and listening for his voice over the comms.

"That's one complete orbit," Pidge said. "There's nothing."

"I'm calling it," Shiro said. "I don't think there's anything more we're going to find here."

"What happened here?" Lance said.

"Who knows," Pidge said.

"There's… There's some structures on the poles," Keith said, trying to force his voice into sounding normal.

"Most of the magma seems to be emanating from the equator," Pidge said. "I think the poles are just where you'd expect to find the most intact structures… Hold up. Okay, yeah, those are Galra tech, I think. It looks like they bored into the planets crust."

"The Galra just destroyed this planet?" Hunk asked.

"Looks like it," Pidge said. "Shiro already said they destroy worlds."

"Yeah, but why?" Lance asked.

"Because they could," Keith said. Because Admiral Regulus hadn't been able to leave with what he had come for, and he didn't want anyone else to have it.

"Do you think anyone escaped?" Lance asked.

Their fleet had managed to carry three hundred and twenty five people off of the planet to Actic Five. Keith had made four runs and had gotten back for a fifth when he'd seen geysers of lava erupting all over the planet. Toxic gases from the release had probably killed most people before they could have been burned to death. Three hundred and twenty five people had been added to the small colony of a hundred and fifteen that had already been there. Thirty more arrived days later from an expedition to the Prendit system. They'd been too far out to help in the evacuation.

The only edible crops they'd had had been the ones they'd brought from home. Nothing native was suitable for them. They hadn't been ready to feed so many. Over a hundred had starved to death before they had been able to ramp up production. It hadn't helped that Actic Five's sun didn't put out half as much energy as they'd absorbed on Rigel Seven. The colony's limited lighting hadn't been able to make up the difference for so many people and people had been rotated on and off of the ships that had been equipped with lights that more closely approximated the light of their home. The Dedarite would have had the seeds they would have had to plant upon arrival in order to have avoided the tragedy, and the habitat dome for them to thrive in, bathed in the memory of the light of their home.

Lance never got to see it. Lance never had to see the slow death of their people. Even as they'd been dodging particle beams the size of skyscrapers tearing through their atmosphere, Lance had had hope that the people they'd saved would be able to rebuild. He'd already been talking about their new society when he'd died.

"Maybe as a slave in some Galra work camp," Pidge said bitterly.

"This is so messed up," Hunk said. "They didn't just… Someone actually sat down and engineered a device that could destroy a planet. Someone did that and then they used it. How does that even happen?"

"You ever hear about Hiroshima?" Pidge asked.

"That was ages ago," Hunk said. "We got better. How does an advanced society do this?"

"What if they do this to Earth?" Lance asked.

Nothing on Earth could stop them.

"They won't," Pidge said.

"How do you know?" Lance asked.

"Because we're going to stop them," Hunk said.

"Paladins!" Princess Allura came in. "We need you back here now. The castle's under attack."

"Oh no," Hunk said.

"Break formation," Shiro said. "Full speed back to the wormhole."

"On it," Lance said, punching his lion forward. Red was faster though. Whatever Zarkon had sent for them, he likely knew that they had all five lions. They couldn't form Voltron yet, though.

Keith was the first one through, and whatever it was, he felt it before he saw it. There was a cloying sickness that he'd never felt before that radiated menace. His telemetry showed an object quickly advancing on the castle, and Keith took off after it.

"Shields?" Keith asked.

"They're up," Coran said. "Though we still haven't gotten them properly calibrated."

Keith finally had a visual on whatever it was. It was humanoid, in that it had two arms and two legs and a head, but there, any resemblance to a human stopped. It was massive, probably twice as big as one of the lions, and it looked like some sort of cyborg bastardization of flesh and machine. It was facing away from Keith, heading straight for the castle, as something on it's front started to charge up.

"I think it's going to fire," Keith said. He was still too far away. A large orb of energy shot out of it and soon reached the castle. The hexagonal panels of the castle's shields lighting up under the onslaught. A few of them winked out momentarily before reappearing.

"We won't be able to take many of those," Coran said.

Keith was still far away, but he fired anyway. The thing had plenty of time to dodge out of the way. It turned to face Red. Shiro came in on the comms. "Keep it distracted till the others get here." The Black Lion was the closest behind him.

Keith fired again as a glowing orb started forming from the chest of the invader.

"What is that thing?" Lance asked.

"The enemy," Keith said. The orb launched at Keith, forcing him to dodge, even as it zoomed by him, Keith felt like he could point to where it was behind him, as if he could feel the energy.

"It's changing trajectory," Pidge exclaimed. The orb that had gone past Red turned midair to shoot after Shiro. Missing the Black Lion, it returned to the invader which quickly caught it in its hand and slung it at Lance.

"Woah," Lance said excitedly a moment later. "Did you see me dodge that?"

Keith felt it as the orb shifted direction. "Look out!" he said.

The orb that had narrowly missed Lance had reversed course and hit the Blue Lion on the back. Keith watched as the icon for the Blue Lion winked out on the comm panel.

"Lance!" Keith called out. There was no response. The Blue Lion was in free fall. "Cover me," he said, taking off after his soulmate. "Lance, come in." The light of the Blue Lion's eyes had cut out. "Lance, respond." It slowly tumbled as it plummeted to the ground. "Lance, are you alright in there?"

"Keith, bank right!" Shiro said.

He would have felt it coming if he hadn't been so focused on Lance. As it was he just barely dodged it in time. Pulling in close to the falling lion, he matched speed and latched on using Red's jaws and started slowing their descent.

"You're a sitting duck," Shiro said. "Get some distance."

Keith carried the Blue Lion away.

"Lance respond!" Keith yelled into his comm. Still nothing. Keith decided that getting more distance wasn't as important as getting into Blue's cockpit. He searched around for a covered area to set down.

"Woah! Hey, guys!" Lance's shaky but gorgeous voice came in. "Switched to my earpiece. Systems are starting to come back online."

"Are you okay?!" Keith asked.

"I lost inertial dampeners," Lance said.

That meant 'no, I got thrown around inside my cockpit as I tumbled through the atmosphere.' In the background he could hear the others continuing the fight but he only had ears for Lance.

"How's your head?" Keith asked.

"Fine," Lance said. "What am I missing?" Keith ignored the question.

"Are you bleeding?" Keith asked.

"If I am, it's all staying inside the suit," Lance said flippantly.

"I'm going to set you down soon," Keith said. "There's a gulley that'll give you cover. Open up and I'll come check you out."

"Negative," Shiro's voice cut in. "If he's not seriously injured, set him down and get back here."

Keith growled. "Got it."

"Gyeong's got me?" Lance asked.

"I've got you," Keith said.

"Huh," Lance said.

"I'm setting you down," Keith said. "Brace, brace, brace."

"Brace, brace, brace!" Lance echoed back, even though there was no one else on his ship to relay the warning to.

"Don't get out of your lion," Keith said.

"Systems are coming back," Lance said. "I'm getting back to the fight right as soon as I can."

"Not until your lion's at one hundred percent," Keith said, shooting off, back into the battle.

"And let you guys have all the fun?" Lance asked.

"This isn't supposed to be fun," Keith growled.

* * *

Dodging was not fun at all for Hunk. It wasn't even the motion of the ship. The inertial dampeners cut most of that out. But the view out of his cockpit still left him feeling sick to his stomach. It was like playing the worst of Lance's first person video games.

"Oh, why does it keep coming for me?" Hunk asked.

"It probably realized you've got the slowest lion," Pidge said.

"What did I miss?" Keith asked as the Red Lion got back to the fight.

"It can take a hit," Hunk said. "And it doesn't seem to be getting tired. How's Lance?"

"You heard everything I heard," Keith said.

"You're going to have to form Voltron," Coran said.

"We're a bit short handed right now," Shiro said.

"Unless we can do anything with four Lions," Hunk said. "Is there anything we can form with four lions?"

"I'm almost ready to get back in the fight," Lance called over the comm.

"Oh, thank god," Hunk said.

"Wait till you're ready," Keith said. "Pidge, what are you doing up there?"

Hunk thought that should be obvious, regardless of Shiro having given the orders over the comms.

"We're engaging," Shiro said. "Pidge is keeping some distance to get in some good shots while we've got it distracted.

"Hunk's got the slowest lion," Keith said.

"He's got the most heavily armored lion," Shiro said. "Not up for debate."

The orb shot off after Keith, and Hunk groaned and leapt forward to ram into the giant cyborg thingy. He latched on with his claws and roared out a particle beam right at the thing's side before it grabbed him and threw him off.

"I just got propulsion!" Lance said.

"Stay down until you have everything else," Keith said.

"Meditate with your lion, Lance," Coran said. "It'll speed things up."

Hunk hated how little he knew about the alchemy mumbo jumbo.

"Firing!" Pidge said.

Everyone else gave the cyborg space while Pidge shot at it. The cyborg also had plenty of time to dodge out of the way. The battle kept going at a bit of a stalemate from there and Hunk was glad that he hadn't managed to eat much food goo at lunch.

"It's charging up again!" Pidge said.

"Keith!" Shiro said.

"On it," Keith said.

Hunk cut off a blast of his own as the Red Lion cut in and latched onto the arm that kept emitting the orb.

"It's there," Pidge said. "Disengage, disengage!"

Keith flew off just as the orb got shot out, just narrowly missing him.

"Hey guys!" Lance said. "I'm back, did you miss me?"

"Are you alright?" Hunk asked.

"Pfft, it'll take more than that to take out Lance Sanchez," Lance said. "Wait, wait wait, you guys have been drifting West."

"We wanted it a bit farther away from the castle," Shiro said. "Do you think you're all ready to form Voltron?"

"No wait," Lance said. "There's a village down there."

"Oh yeah," Pidge said. "He's right, we're getting close."

"Okay, we start drawing it North," Shiro said. "Hunk, you harry it from behind. Lance, join Pidge, try shooting off towards it's south facing flank. Keith and I'll do strafing runs."

Hunk tried to keep an eye on the village as he attempted to goad the cyborg away. They hadn't even noticed it. Just one shot from that orb would have destroyed it. Or a stray shot from one of the lions. It wouldn't take some planet buster to destroy the people below, just carelessness on their parts.

"Coran," Shiro said. "Where are we on weapons?"

"Targeting works," Coran said. "But accuracy isn't the best."

"Okay, we'll give you some room. Give us cover while we form Voltron."

Oh, they were doing that again? In the middle of a battle?

A particle beam was emitted from the castle, missing the cyborg, but garnering its attention.

"Alright team, its time to form Voltron" Shiro said. "Formation on me. The castle can't give us that much time."

The rate of fire from the castle accelerated, most of the shots were misses though. Hunk gave it a wide berth as he went over to the others.

"Focus on your lions," Coran said.

Flying was hard enough. He felt at the edges of his mind where somehow the presence of his lion rested.

"You are one with your lion," Coran said.

Hunk tried to think of himself, not as a person flying a machine, but as a part of a whole.

"You are one with your team," Coran said. "One purpose drives you, drives the creation of Voltron."

He couldn't quite feel the others. They were connected, he knew that, somehow, but he couldn't really feel it. 'Got to form Voltron.'

The answering thought drifted through his mind again.

Why?

"So we can destroy the cyborg."

Disappointment, it was a feeling.

"What do you want from me?"

More.

"That's what I've got."

More.

"So we can stop the Galra."

WHY?

"Because they destroy planets!"

Nothing.

"Oh, so that's not good enough?"

A memory was drawn to the front of his mind. A poster with a high resolution image of Neptune that was on his wall at home.

More.

Neptune was lifeless. Rigel seven hadn't been. Rigel seven had been full of life, like Earth was full of life, like the galaxy was full of life. Like there was life down below.

"The village, the castle, we have to protect them, Voltron needs to protect them!" Hunk said. "They destroy civilizations, they kill people. That's why we need to form Voltron, that's why we need to stop the Galra."

There was a growling purr in his mind, and then it was like something slid into place and he felt a convergence in his head. He felt the others, Lance to his right, Pidge right over him, Shiro holding them together.

"Did we just?" Hunk asked.

"Heck yeah we did," Lance said.

Hunk was… Hunk was a leg, he was a leg of Voltron. But he didn't see from his cockpit, he saw from Shiro's, he saw from the head.

"Any moment now!" Coran's voice called out, sounding desperate.

"Let's go," Shiro said. They shot forward towards the cyborg.

* * *

Five minds controlling one body. Shiro could feel Voltron, as if it was his own body, and though it was his command, it was Pidge who raised their arm and fired at the Gladiator. The orb came for them again, and as they were dodging it the Gladiator comes at them again, striking out with a pulsing hand. They were busy with that when the orb struck them in the back. They cried out as one. Another strike from the Gladiator sent them flying back as the glowing orb started to charge again.

"Okay," Lance said. "I'm going to kick the orb next time."

Maybe they weren't totally in sync.

"It's firing," Pidge said.

"Shield!" Shiro said. He didn't know how, but he knew that the green lion summoned their shield.

The left arm of Voltron came up, but instead of a shield, a massive particle beam shot out, which completely missed the Gladiator.

"Sorry," Pidge said, even as Shiro guided them in a dodge. He kept them moving, struggling to both avoid the orb, and the Gladiator's strikes, and then they had to avoid the orb's return. No sooner had the orb returned to the Gladiator then it flung it back at them. Shiro found himself giving way to Lance, and they shot forward with Voltron's right leg held high, to kick the orb. They missed the orb, but so it also missed them.

"Grapple," Shiro said, as they came in reach of the Gladiator. He felt as if he was guiding Keith and Pidge as they took control. Keith blocked the Gladiator's strike and locked it's arm while Pidge took a close up shot at it's center.

"There's the orb," Pidge called out, and the propulsion in their legs kicked in as Lance and Hunk guided them away.

The orb was quickly flung at them again, and they narrowly missed it, but they weren't able to avoid the Gladiator's kick that almost had them colliding with the castle. Keith and Pidge just barely managed to stabilize them in time.

"Looks like he's recharging," Pidge said.

"Quick," Shiro said. "Hit him before he can shoot it off again."

They flew forward, both arms charging up to deliver a blow, but as the orb finished charging up, the gladiator dodged to the side, narrowly dodging the twin beams as it flung the orb at them. It struck them and Shiro felt the blow as if it had struck his own body. The Gladiator was already charging up another one as they regained their baring.

"Isn't Voltron supposed to be the strongest weapon in the galaxy?" Hunk asked.

"You're not exactly ready to draw out it's full potential," Coran said.

Shiro could feel the agitation coming from Hunk and Pidge at that. Then they were dodging the orb again, and engaging with the Gladiator.

"Guy's this thing is following video game logic," Lance said, as the orb returned once more to the Gladiator.

"Not now Lance," Shiro said. The orb was slung at them again.

"No, wait," Lance said, as he helped propel them away. "It's like the final boss, it's got a pattern, you've just got to figure out the pattern."

"Damn it Lance, this isn't a video game," Keith said, as the orb returned to the Gladiator and he flung it back at them.

"It's going to recharge now," Lance said. "After it catches the orb, it's going to recharge it."

They dodge the orb as it returns. The Gladiator catches it and starts recharging.

"Well, shit," Pidge said.

"Hah," Lance crowed. "Three throws and then recharge."

By the time they've readied their attack, it's already flinging out the orb.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Focus on defense. When the orb is returning after the third throw, that's when we ready our attack."

Dodge, dodge, hit. "Ugh, I hate this thing," Lance calls out. The orb is mostly charged up by the time they regain their bearings.

Shiro could feel the damage piling up, even as he knew that it was slowly being repaired.

Another successful dodge left them open to a strike that had them crashing into a cliff face.

"Got you covered," Coran said, and the Castle resumed firing at the Gladiator to give them time to get back up.

"We've still got this," Shiro said. "Two more throws."

"Come and get it, you big ugly troll," Lance called out.

"Here it comes," Pidge said.

"Wait, no," Hunk said. "Just one more throw."

The Gladiator was already mid throw, and Hunk didn't have time to communicate what he'd figured out, but it didn't matter. Shiro wasn't sure if the concept was communicated through the link, or if they were just operating on the same wavelength, but he understood then what was going to happen next.

"Ready the attack as soon as we dodge," Shiro said.

"I've got something," Keith said.

"Do it," Shiro said.

Pidge and Hunk both aimed their thrusts at the cliff face right behind them, and they flipped out of the way just before the orb would have hit them. It hit the cliff behind them in an explosion of rock.

Shiro felt a charge in his right hand.

"It's charging up a new one," Pidge said.

A massive sword materialized for Voltron. Shiro felt as if he was wielding it in his own hand.

"Now," Shiro said.

They rushed forward, and as slow and cumbersome as the fight had been, it ended suddenly. They struck the Gladiator through with their sword and the orb that had started to form guttered out and died as the Gladiator fell.

"Yes!" They cried out as one.

They felt victorious, they felt connected, they felt like one, they felt…

"Moments over!" Pidge said, and Voltron fell apart, the five lions hovering in the air over the fallen Gladiator.

"Thank you," Keith said.

"Guys," Lance said. "We were having a moment. Nobody mention that when they're making the movie."

Keith's sigh was loud over the comms.

"Fantastic work Paladins," Allura's voice came in. "Today is the rebirth of Voltron, and a loss for Zarkon that will echo through the Galran Empire."

"We were glad for your help," Shiro said. "Alright team, I think we've earned a proper meal and a rest."

"So is there anything to eat that isn't goo based?" Hunk asked.

* * *

Keith didn't really care how Lance had sounded over the comms as they'd landed. Lance was full of bravado and so much bright energy and Keith didn't trust his assessment of whatever injuries he'd sustained when he'd been hit. He rushed to land first, and he was up the ramp to the Blue Lion as soon as it dropped.

"Sanchez?" Keith asked, as he got into the cockpit.

Lance was reaching over to pick his helmet up off the floor. There was blood on the side of his face and down the front of his armor. Keith felt like pulling his hair out. "Why was your helmet off?" he bit out.

"What are you doing in my lion?" Lance asked.

"Checking you for injuries," Keith said. "Which you have because you weren't wearing your helmet."

"I had to activate my earpiece," Lance said. "Helmet rolled away. Inertial dampeners might not have been at one hundred percent when Voltron took a couple of those hits."

"I told you to wait," Keith said. "Come on. You're going to the infirmary."

"I'm checking on my team, and then I'm eating something," Lance said. "Also, you're eating something. You really need to eat something."

Lance was an idiot. There was a lot of blood, and the guy just wanted to go get something to eat.

"You need to get checked out," Keith said.

"It's a scratch," Lance said, walking down the ramp. "It's not even bleeding anymore."

"Because you've got a hand plastered over your scalp," Keith said, walking out after him.

Keith followed him over to the Green Lion, where Pidge was coming out.

"How're you doing Gunderson?" Lance asked. "Er… Holt? Wait, is your name even Pidge?"

"Pidge will do fine," Pidge said. "Also, you're dead to me."

"I came to make sure you weren't dead," Lance said. "Status report."

"I don't need you checking up on me," Pidge said. "I'm fourteen, not four. Thanks to you, everyone's treating me like I'm a kid."

"You are a kid," Lance said.

Pidge flipped him off as she walked off, Rover following dutifully after.

"Can we go to the infirmary now?" Keith asked.

"Don't need the infirmary," Lance said, turning towards the Yellow Lion. "Shouldn't you go eat a sandwich or something?"

Keith thought about storming off. He certainly felt like it. Lance was being stupid, and he wasn't exactly on death's door. He didn't need Keith to hover, but after the day that Keith had had, maybe he needed to hover. It was just harder now to see Lance looking at him like that when he'd smiled at him earlier.

"Hunk, buddy? How're you doing up there," Lance hollered up at open jaws of the Yellow Lion.

"Small bit of cleanup," Hunk said.

"You spew?" Lance asked.

"Just a bit," Hunk called back. "Not a lot to spew in the first place."

"Any injuries?" Lance asked.

"I'm good," Hunk hollered back, and then a moment later he appeared in the entrance. He took one look at Lance and swore. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Lance said. "Hungry though, come on."

They started walking towards the kitchens, and Keith wanted to know why Hunk at least wasn't calling Lance out on his bullshit.

Lance reached up and tapped his earpiece. "Shiro," he said, and paused a moment. "Just letting you know I've got eyes on everyone else. We're all accounted for."

Keith activate his own comm. "Shiro," he said. "Just letting you know Lance has a head wound and doesn't want to go to the infirmary."

"Hey!" Lance said.

"Keith, Lance, meet me and Coran in the infirmary," Shiro said.

"I don't need Gyeong to babysit me," Lance said.

"Not up for discussion," Shiro said.

"What did you think was going to happen when you got to the kitchens?" Hunk asked.

Lance's cheeks tinged red.

"You go eat," Lance said. "I'll catch up later."

They split from Hunk and started heading towards the infirmary.

"Well at least it backfired on you," Lance said.

"What are you talking about?" Keith asked.

"Oh, I've got your number," Lance said. "But it's going to be Lance Sanchez who the Princess is going to fall for."

Keith scowled. "What the hell are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You wanted to have her all to yourself, right after our victory, with me off in the infirmary," Lance said. "I mean, I get it, but I thought we could be gentlemen about this, but okay. Two can play this game."

"You're concussed," Keith said.

"I've got my eye on you Gyeong," Lance said.

"I'm not interested in the Princess," Keith said.

Lance snorted. "Yeah right," he said.

He should have just told Lance that he was gay. His soulmate should know that he was gay. It wasn't anything he'd ever felt the need to shout about, but it wasn't anything he felt like hiding, other than that he just never really talked about himself with others anyway. Just then though, he didn't feel like he could tell Lance. He should have been able to tell Lance anything, but he couldn't. He should have been able to seek comfort in the arms of his soulmate after what he'd been through as they'd orbited Rigel Seven. He should have been able to tell Lance that he had been so scared when he'd seen the Blue Lion falling, but he couldn't tell him any of those things. Keith didn't get any of that. This was the lifetime where he didn't get those things. This was the lifetime where Lance hated him, and chased after princesses. He hated being Keith. What would happen in their next lifetime? Would Lance remember hating Keith more than he remembered loving him?

Coran was in the infirmary when they got there. "Yikes!" he said. "Set him up on the exam table."

"Hey," Lance said. "I don't need to be set down anywhere." He sat himself down.

Keith figured he'd leave them to it. Let Lance stew a bit thinking he was off charming the princess or whatever.

"Nope, you stay too number four," Coran said.

"Number four?" Keith asked.

"I've got you ranked by height," Coran said. "Makes things simpler."

Keith didn't have anything to say to that, though Lance seemed to think it was funny.

Coran scanned Lance and asked him what a human's blood pressure was supposed to be.

"What are you reading?" Shiro asked from the doorway. Keith hadn't noticed him arrive.

Coran opened his mouth but paused. "Units don't translate," he said. "I can use you as a baseline."

Shiro walked over and Coran scanned him.

"You're a bit low," Coran said, turning to Lance. "We'll keep an eye on that. No swelling in your head, so that's good, looks like it's just a deep scalp wound." He rustled around in a cupboard and pulled out a squeeze bottle of something. "Go use this to wash with over the sink there, and we'll get it closed up in a dobash." He turned to Keith. "Your turn," he said.

"I wasn't injured," Keith said.

"Just a check up," Shiro said.

Keith had gone through plenty of physicals on Earth, but he had no idea what the alien scanner was going to find.

"If we're using Lance as a baseline, then he is a bit malnourished, though I couldn't say how serious these levels are for your species," Coran said.

"Told you so," Lance said from the sink.

"I'm fine," Keith said.

"Best thing for it is to make sure he eats plenty," Coran said.

"That's what I said!"

"Well, I don't think that'll be a problem," Shiro said, clapping Keith on the shoulder. "I'll get this one to the dining room. What about Lance?"

"He seems to have lost a bit of blood," Coran said. "No strenuous activities for…"

"It's normally a day after you give blood," Shiro said.

"We'll check back tomorrow," Coran said. "A good meal and a good night's sleep will probably do him some good. Also, plenty of fluids."

"You got that Paladin?" Shiro asked.

"Copy that," Lance said. Holding a towel to his head he got back up onto the exam table.

Coran got out a device and some bandages. "We'll have this healed in half a varga."

"Are you hungry?" Shiro asked. "We can send you some food, and I don't want you in the kitchen until you're no longer covered in blood."

"I'll wait until I'm showered and changed," Lance said.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Come on Keith"

Keith gave one last glance back for Lance.

"So is this going to scar?" Lance asked.

Keith sighed as the walked through the door.

"Do you want to change first?" Shiro asked.

Keith shook his head. He actually was pretty hungry.

"You did really well out there today," Shiro said. "How are you adjusting though? I didn't really get to talk to you yesterday."

"I'm alright," Keith said. "Things have been hectic." It wasn't like he didn't have plenty of reference points to go off of though.

"Well, good looking out for your team mates today," Shiro said. "I'm going to rely on you a bit to make sure we don't have anyone trying to sneak off when they should be heading to the infirmary."

"That was a good call Lance made," Keith said.

"Skipping the infirmary?" Shiro asked.

"The orb," Keith said.

"It was," Shiro said. "We should have figured it out sooner. It was a bit obvious."

Keith shrugged.

"Almost as obvious as your crush on Lance," Shiro said.

Keith groaned. He really hoped it wasn't really.

"How are you getting along with Hunk and Pidge?" Shiro asked.

"No issues," Keith said.

"Did you know either of them at the Garrison?" Shiro asked.

"Never talked to them before," Keith said. "I'm not really here to socialize."

"So why are you here?" Shiro asked.

He couldn't say that he was making sure his soulmate stayed alive.

"It just sort of happened," Keith said. He shrugged. "Do you think we're going to win?"

Shiro had always seemed a bit of an optimist, but Keith didn't think him delusional.

"I think we have to try," Shiro said. "Some things just have to be done."

That's what Keith had felt in the desert. Nothing righteous like Shiro was talking about, but rather the sense that he had to do what he was doing regardless of whether or not it made sense. Even when chasing after it had meant cold and hungry nights in a shack in the middle of the high desert, it had been the only thing he could have done.

Maybe fighting the Galra was like that. He was angry with them for what they'd done, all the distant planets in peril though were a distant concept for him. The empire was a stain on the universe, and fighting them would feel right, would feel familiar, Keith knew. He thought that in past lives, that what he was fighting for would have mattered more to him than the fight itself, that he would have fought alongside Lance for a common goal that they shared, rather than just the need to guard Lance to his last. He just didn't feel like he knew who he really was in his current life. There wasn't any other motive he could ascribe to his willingness to fight.

He looked up at Shiro, who he'd only just gotten back. He thought he could fight for Shiro too. "You've got me," he said.

"Yes," Shiro said, nodding. "I'm glad you're my right hand man."

Keith nodded. "I don't think Pidge would have been good with a sword."

Shiro laughed for some reason and ruffled his hair. They got to the kitchens where Hunk was timing how long food goo would jiggle if you hit the side of your bowl with a spoon and Pidge was doing something with rover, looking both irritated and tired. When Shiro was done eating he pulled Pidge away for a conversation and then Hunk left to go help the Alteans with whatever they were fixing after the battle. Keith had to admit that Allura was very hands on for a princess.

It was an hour later that Lance finally showed up. Keith would have denied that he was waiting for him if he had asked.

"No scar, huh?" Keith said.

"Nope," Lance said. "Was the princess here?"

"Nope," Keith said.

"Huh." Lance went and got himself a bowl. "Did you eat up, hotshot? You're going to need it if you don't want me kicking your butt in training."

"Aren't you on bedrest or something?" Keith asked.

"No!" Lance said. "I'm on light duty, and it's only one day, so watch out."

"For what?" Keith asked.

"For me!" Lance said.

Keith nodded. "Well, I will definitely look out if you ever need catching again."

"Hey!" Lance said. "That definitely won't be happening again."

"Good."

"Whatever," Lance said. "I guess I should thank you for catching me. But don't think I'm going to go easy on you. I'm going to beat you as a pilot and it'll be me the princess falls for."

"Whatever you say," Keith said. Lance was fine. There wasn't any point to Keith being there. He got up. "Have fun on bed rest tomorrow."

"Light duty!"

Keith went and found the princess. He had no idea what she was doing.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked.

"What's a minute?" the princess asked.

"Um, a moment of your time," Keith said. "I wanted to talk about that thing we talked about yesterday."

"Oh, yes," the princess said. "Did you remember anything."

"Is that why you sent us there?"

"I thought some of you needed to see what it was we were fighting for."

"There's survivors," Keith said. "There's a nearby star system. I could pick it out on a chart. They need help. We didn't get the right kind of sunlight there."

"How many?"

"There were little over a two hundred left when I died," Keith said.

That gave the princess pause. "I'm sorry for your loss. We'll do for them what we can," she said. "It should be easy enough to resettle them somewhere else with a more suitable environment."

Keith nodded.

"Did you remember anything else?"

"Nothing I want to talk about," Keith said.

"How's your second half?"

Keith shrugged. "He lost a bit of blood, but the wound already looks healed. Also, you need to stop meddling."

"It's not normal for a pair of wanderers to be apart like you are," the Princess said.

"Well, we are," Keith said. "It's not going to get better just because you keep pushing us together."

"I'll have you know I was considered a match maker among my friends," the Princess said.

Keith shook his head. "Fate couldn't get it right this time," he said. "What makes you think you've got it."

"Princess!" Lance said from the doorway. "I just wanted to see how you were doing after the castle took that nasty hit."

"The castle's the one that took the damage," the Princess said. "This is about done here. Do you two think you two could get this panel back in place? I've got to talk to Coran about the wellyart ionizer. Thanks. Good work out there today."

She was already out of the room.

"Huh," Lance said.

Keith eyed the panel, not sure how it was supposed to lock into place.

"Fancy finding you here," Lance said. "Still in your armor; nice touch."

Keith sighed.

"I've got my eye on you Gyeong."

* * *

He was too keyed up to settle down, and his quarters were too small for him to pace in properly, so he'd gone off and let his restless legs guide him through the castle. He'd walk it out and then he'd go through his nightly routine and everything would be fine. His head was too active to even think about settling down just then.

Lance kept vacillating how he saw the adventure. On one hand, everything was awesome. He was in space, piloting the most powerful thing in the universe, fighting a war against an evil alien empire, saving Earth, saving the Galaxy, and fate had chosen him and dropped him right next to an alien princess who'd literally fallen into his arms. It was everything he'd ever dreamed of plus a bunch of things he'd never thought were in any way things he could possibly strive for.

At the same time, there was an element of too good to be true. Like a mistake had been made. He kept pushing that to the background. It wasn't like he hadn't believed he could be the best pilot in his class. But this was so much more, this was chosen one stuff, and even though it was easy enough to imagine himself saving the galaxy, it was a bit harder to actually believe that he had what it took. Those doubts had reared up when he'd been in free fall after his lion had taken that hit. For a moment he'd thought that his super awesome, amazing and cool adventure was coming to a rather abrupt and violent end. His last thought would have been of his mother, back on Earth, never knowing what had happened to him.

He'd missed his family dearly back at the Garrison. They'd only been a FaceTime away, but they hadn't been there. Now they were countless lightyears away, and he didn't know how they were doing, or what they'd been told. The Princess had told them that they'd been fated to become Paladins, but Lance didn't know if he was fated to ever see his home again. It could have all ended that day. It could have all ended with Lance lying broken across his control panel. Maybe the only thing Lance had ever been fated for was ferrying the others to the fight. Maybe he'd done what he was supposed to do. The cargo run was over, and for a moment, he'd thought it was over for him.

Then Gyeong had caught him. Gyeong who still thought he was nothing. Gyeong who looked pained just looking at him. Sometimes Lance felt like he was on top of the world. On top of the Galaxy, and then he saw Gyeong looking at him in frustration, or Shiro looking at him like he was a Cadet out past curfew, and he was reminded that in the grand scheme of things, he was just a leg of Voltron, a seventeen year old kid everyone had always expected to fail.

He'd wanted more than just adventure at the Garrison. He remembered that when he was feeling low. That it wasn't just about being an awesome space pilot. He'd had responsibilities at the Garrison, and he'd been proud of them. He was worried though that no one needed Lance the team lead. They certainly didn't seem to want Lance the team lead.

Eventually his legs carried him back to the paladin quarters and Lance considered doing rounds. It was already late though. Maybe he'd check on them in the morning. He went back into his own room and washed his face, enjoying the warm water on his skin. He would have liked to have used an astringent, and then a gelatin face mask, but he didn't have anything for that, yet. Hunk had mentioned something that Coran was using to fabricate replacement parts, and Lance was hoping it could do more than that. That night he settled for just moisturizing and then sitting down on his bed and doing some deep breathing exercises and some meditation. It was difficult. His thoughts kept drifting to the planet they'd seen earlier that day.

He changed into the blue pajamas that had been left for him, surprisingly in his size, and knelt next to his bed. He said the Lords Prayer, replacing food goo for bread, and sparing a moment to realize that there wasn't any communion in space.

Did that matter?

"Oh heavenly father," he said. "Thanks for that save back there. I thought I'd be visiting with Saint Peter for a moment there, if you know what I mean. People keep talking about fate, but Mamá always said you always had a plan for all of us, so if this is your plan for me… well, no pressure I guess." Was that hubris? "I'll do my best. I'll protect Earth, and I'll stop the Galra, and I'll save everyone else. All the planets they've enslaved." They were all God's people, weren't they? He thought about Rigel Seven, and swallowed thickly. Had they been God's people too? He cleared his throat.

"Please watch over Mamá and Papá and the twins, and my brothers and sisters and everyone. Please comfort them if they're upset about me. I don't know if you've heard from Pidge, but, please help him find his family. Please let them be alright."

He prayed for his fellow Paladins, and for Allura and Coran. He prayed for Earth and the Galaxy. He prayed for guidance.

He got back up onto his bed and got himself settled. His thoughts though were unsettled. Prayer was normally comforting, for a moment he could push whatever he was worried about off of his shoulders, at least until morning, but that night he kept thinking about Rigel Seven. It was one thing to hear Shiro say that the Galra destroyed worlds, but it was another to see it. He thought about Altea. He told himself that God had a plan. It had been easy to have faith in that when he'd grown up in a peaceful and prosperous world. Easy enough to see God's plan in history books when he saw how humanity had marched forward together from war and disease to the verdant and just world he'd grown up in. And yet…

And yet there'd been a war going on for the past ten thousand some odd years. Civilizations that had risen and fallen longer ago than there had been civilizations on Earth. Planets full of people had been destroyed. He knew that there were people who thought the Earth had been created less than six thousand years ago, and he'd always thought that that was silly, but still. He felt like the perspective he'd viewed the universe had changed. God was the creator of the universe. The people of the universe were his people. How was Earth different from Altea, or Rigel Seven. Where the Galra part of God's plan? He tried not to think about it, but it was a long time until he got to sleep.

* * *

A/N: Hope you liked it. I wanted to have this out a bit ago but grad school is slowly killing me. Please drop me a review. Alternative title for next chapter: Please Sir, That's My Emotional Support Rover.


	3. Butting Heads

Blah, blah, blah. Sorry for the wait. Grad School's almost over. Updates should pickup in the summer.

* * *

Butting Heads

He couldn't move. The cloaked figure in front of him reached out a hand towards his head and he couldn't jerk back.

"I don't need you to talk."

He couldn't see their face, but he could hear the smirk in their voice. Their thumb touched his forehead and everything felt scrambled.

…

He squirmed, trying to move, the massive hand around his middle pinned him to the wall. The other hand came up high above him, holding a club the size of a tree branch, studded in steel. He had to move.

…

He fell off the little ledge that happened to be spicing up the arena that day. He knew how to fall, knew how to stop the wind from getting knocked out of his lungs, but he'd just taken a dazing blow to the head and he fell like a sack of bricks. He had to move before they came for him, but he couldn't even breath.

…

All he could do was breath. He'd won the fight, but it wasn't over. He stood over Bondo, a sword in hand. He could hear Sendak's pet coming. It wasn't coming for him. The collar around Bondo's neck was emitting the sound that summoned it. Bondo was still conscious enough to hear the beast that was about to tear him apart for the entertainment of everyone in the stands. Shiro tightened his grip on his sword. He didn't know which way he would move.

…

All he could do was scream as the worst pain of his life tore through his right arm. He struggled agains the bands holding him down.

…

For a moment he didn't realize that he'd woken up. He still struggled to move, to scream, until finally the slightest gasp left his lips and he suddenly found himself tumbling out of bed, his sheets clinging to his wet skin. He gasped in a deep breath and let it shudder out.

He brought his hand up to swipe his sweat soaked hair out of his eyes, only to pause as he felt the cold metal against his brow.

"You have a metal arm," Shiro told himself. He looked up. Dim lights had come on when he'd fallen out of bed.

"You're in the Castle of Lions," he said. "Keith is here with you. You pilot the Black Lion of Voltron."

He turned himself around so he could lean up against the bed.

"You are a paladin. You aren't a prisoner. You aren't a gladiator. You aren't Champion. You are free."

His left hand finally got the hair out of his eyes.

"This is stupid," he said. It was just a stupid trick his dad had taught him when he'd been little and prone to nightmares. "Your family's safe on Earth," he said. "And they'll never have to worry about the Galra." He glanced back at the bed. He wouldn't be getting back to sleep. "Too damn soft."

Shiro stood up, disentangling himself from the sheet. "Lights up," he commanded. He walked purposely into the bathroom and grabbed a towel and quickly got rid of the sweat. He walked over to his closet and pulled out his one set of clothes. Somehow clean once more, just like the morning before.

The castle was quiet. The training room wasn't though.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asked Keith, when his foster brother looked over at him.

"I'm alright," Keith said. "You're the one who's up early."

"Bed's too soft," Shiro said.

"There's always the floor," Keith said.

Shiro laughed like he'd made a joke. "Don't let me interrupt," he said.

Keith nodded and went back to modifying forms he'd learned with a two handed sword to use with his bayard.

Shiro wasn't sure what to do at first. He'd been operating on autopilot just coming to the training deck. He set about doing the warmup sets he'd learned in his first year at the Garrison.

"Computer, set an alarm for one varga before Princess Allura's wakeup time," Shiro said.

"Data file marked private," a voice oddly similar to Coran's said.

"Set an alarm for one varga before Coran's wakeup time," Shiro tried.

"Alarm set."

"Computer, start training simulation level three."

The training robot materialized in front of him. He focused on his arm, and his hand started to glow purple.

"Begin."

Shiro hadn't checked the time when he woke up, and he spent the training session in a haze of action, pausing only to reset the program and up the difficulty. He was frustrated when his alarm eventually went off. He was covered in sweat again and he took a moment to hydrate before retiring to the attached locker room. Keith followed him in. He'd forgotten that Keith had been there. He stripped off his clothes and hung them up in one of the alcoves.

He heard a small gasp from Keith and turned in time to see Keith's eyes roving over some of the scars that littered his body before his head snapped forward towards where he was stashing his own clothes. Shiro saw that Lance had been right about being able to see Keith's ribs.

"Princess Allura said you thought to check for habitable planets in systems neighboring the Rigel system," Shiro said, trying to force himself out of the headspace he'd fallen into, and making sure Keith knew that he didn't need to worry about the scars.

"Oh," Keith said. "Yeah. You never know."

They headed for the showers.

"You're really fitting into place here," Shiro said. "As a Paladin. I'm proud of you."

Keith flushed red a bit.

The spay of the shower was instantly hot, and a little adjustment turned it cooler to make sure he didn't fall prey to the luxury and spend an hour in there. Some of the accommodations on the ship just felt wrong to him. The bed, the bright lights, and the computer ready to do your bidding. Only the food made him feel like things were normal. Those thoughts though were too close to the past, and he wasn't thinking about that.

"There's a number of tasks today, we'll be splitting up for the most part," Shiro said. "Princess Allura suggested you and Lance check out some of the systems around Rigel since we want Pidge and Hunk for some of the technical matters. Are you going to be okay with that."

"Yes," Keith said quickly. "I'll keep him out of trouble."

"Don't let him goad you into anything," Shiro said.

"You don't like him," Keith said a bit petulantly, sounding a bit more like the teenager he'd been trying to pretend he wasn't.

"He has some growing up to do," Shiro said. "You all had some more growing up to do, but…"

"He'll surprise you," Keith said.

"I know you have a crush on him," Shiro said. "But do you like him?"

"I like him a lot."

"But…"

"It doesn't matter," Keith said. But Lance didn't have feelings for Keith. Which was fine, of course. Shiro couldn't fault anyone for not being into someone else, but he didn't exactly appreciate that his foster brother had found himself on the receiving end of a lot of goading from the boy he was crushing on. He couldn't exactly tell Keith that there were plenty of fish in the sea either, since they'd found themselves in a very small pond.

"Focus on being his teammate," Shiro said. "We did pretty well yesterday, but we need to work on teamwork. With everyone."

Keith groaned at that.

Shiro shut off his shower. "I've got some things to get ready before breakfast," he said. "Don't rush."

Keith grunted, and Shiro left him to enjoy the rest of his shower. He dried off and found that the clothes he'd left in his alcove were clean and dry. It felt wrong being so clean. Which was a ridiculous feeling. He knew that full well. He wasn't going to run around covered in sweat and grime just because of a feeling.

He went back to his room and made some notes on things he wanted to go over that morning with the team. It felt like being back at the Garrison, getting ready for a meeting. It felt nice. It felt dangerous.

He checked the time. Coran would have just gotten up, and so too probably Princess Allura.

"Computer, put me on the ship's speaker."

* * *

Pidge almost cried when Shiro's voice came in over the PA.

"Rise and shine Paladins. We've got a busy day ahead of us. It is twenty-two forty Earth Standard Time. You have seventy-five minutes to get ready, eat breakfast and meet on the training deck. Uniform of the day is your civilian clothes."

Her headache was back instantly. She didn't want to get out of bed. She was too tired. She hadn't slept much the night before. Insomnia was one of the stupider effects of caffeine withdrawal. She hadn't even been able to really do anything productive.

"You can say you told me so," Pidge said. "But I get to say it too." Matt had always disapproved of his little sister's caffeine habits, even though he'd been her biggest enabler before she'd had a reliable way to get it on her own.

Hearing her voice, Rover came over and chirped at her in greeting. She reached out a hand to pat him on the top of his casing. Changing her grip she said, "Rover, pull me out of bed, buddy."

This was a bit of a mistake. Rover didn't have any concept of how humans operated, or what position they needed to be in to stand and he just moved parallel to the floor, pulling away from the bed. Pidge managed though and stood up to a big dizzy spell and an even larger headache.

Stumbling into her bathroom she looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. A couple of passes of her fingers did about as much as she was willing to do for her hair. A quick sniff left her concluding that the clothes she had slept in were suitable for the day. Eventually, she made her way to the kitchen where she barely had an appetite for her food goo. Lance was giving her a look so she flipped him off.

They all gathered on the training deck and Pidge was relieved to find that they were just going to be getting some briefings.

"Pidge, are you coming down with something?" Shiro asked.

"Caffeine withdrawal," Lance supplied.

Pidge shot him a glare. "I'm fine," she said.

"Alright then, we've got some briefings, and then we'll be splitting up for assigned tasks," Shiro said.

The first couple hours were spent with Shiro and Coran giving various briefings on operating procedures and other things that Pidge couldn't be bothered to care about. Lastly though, Shiro gave a breakdown of how Pidge was supposed to operate within the team, and in battles and on missions. That largely got her attention. It basically boiled down to managing her risk levels and keeping her in support roles for the most part, and staying inside of her lion. She shot a sour look towards Lance when Shiro actually said the words 'buddy system.'

Finally though, they were done, and Shiro started giving out assignments.

"Keith and Lance, you're going to be checking out the Actic system which neighbors the Rigel system. Princess Allura identified a likely habitable planet."

"There could be survivors?" Lance asked.

"The remains of that ship in orbit suggests that they had interstellar capabilities, so there could be," Shiro said. "This is a scouting mission only. Do not engage if you encounter the enemy or other hostiles. Coran's going to give you a communicator to drop off if you make contact with anyone. Assess them for any immediate needs, let them know we'd like to talk to them in the future and then come back. Princess Allura will be busy, so we won't be able to keep the wormhole open for you. You'll need to tell us when you're mission's complete. Mandatory check-in every half hour. Keith's taking point."

"Keith!"

"Any questions?"

"Nope," Keith said. "I'll keep you up to date."

"Don't forget, Lance is on light duty,"

"I make no promises if there are any more swooning princesses that need catching," Lance said.

Shiro didn't respond to that. "Dismissed," he told them. "Get into your armor. Hunk you're with Coran getting systems back online. Pidge, I want you going through the castle's captured communications logs. I want hotspot maps of Galra communications and a time progression map of activity through the galaxy. I'll want a progress report at dinner tonight."

"That's like half an hour of work," Pidge said. "I want to check the Galra ship for intel."

"Good idea, but not without a partner," Shiro said. "When you're done, check with Princess Allura for where you can help next. I'll be finishing up some planning after lunch. We'll go out then to see what we can find in the wreckage."

It was something.

Her tablet had mainframe access, and she tapped into it with her laptop to get at the data. The ship's computer had advanced query response and she was able to quickly identify the data she needed. After that, all she really had to do was figure out how she wanted to organize the data and then she was done. She looked at the time. That had taken her twenty minutes. She spent a bit of time adding more protocols to Rover who chirped at her while she worked.

At the end of her self assigned half an hour she went and found the Princess, who set her up with a training program to familiarize her with some of the systems and the coding languages that ran the ship. Pidge uploaded the castle schematics into Rover and had him take her on a guided tour so she could inspect different things while she learned about them. It should have been super cool and awesome, but she was just too tired and achy to worry about it.

Lunch rolled around and it was food goo yet again. Hunk talked at her about the things Coran had him working on while she ate. Eventually Shiro showed up and Pidge slid her tablet over to him so he could see what she'd worked on.

"Transmissions have some sort of id number at the beginning," Pidge said. "I think it's unique to the ship. I also think there's a classifications system in there, so like, a cruiser's going to have a different prefix from a cargo ship and whatnot. I'll be able to do a lot more if I can get a rubric or something."

"This is great," Shiro said. "Anything stand out in their recent communications?"

Pidge frowned. "The ship in our solar system wasn't encrypting their comms," she said. "Which was weird. But just about everything else out there is. So we don't exactly have a log of everything the empire's been talking about. For the most part, all we've got are ship designations and where each communication was from."

"Well this is a good start," Shiro said. "Good work."

"Can we go check out the wreckage yet?" Pidge asked.

"Let's get into our armor," Shiro said.

Pidge sighed in relief. She was finally getting a chance to resume her search. She grabbed her backpack and followed Shiro out the door.

They helped each other get their armor on. Shiro had to crouch down for her to help him with his chest piece.

She looked over when a purple light lit up the room. Shiro's mechanical hand was glowing.

"Weapons check," he said.

She picked up her Bayard and activated it briefly before storing it in her thigh piece. "Still messing with the laws of physics," she said as it dissolved into the ether.

They both got into the black lion and took off towards the wreckage.

"Which part are we headed for?" Pidge asked.

"That bit over there looks the least damaged," Shiro said.

They landed a small distance away. Finding an entrance wasn't difficult since the hull was plenty damaged.

"Stay behind me if anything shows up," Shiro said.

"I'm not a damsel in distress," Pidge said. She shot Rover a look as if he was going to commiserate with her.

"Age aside," Shiro said. "I'm a martial arts expert with years of experience and you're an imposter science officer slash hacker who skipped all of your combat classes."

"I'm just saying, you don't need to treat me differently from the others," Pidge said.

"You can't find your family if you're dead," Shiro said.

"I can't find my family if you keep me out of the field," Pidge said.

"You're in the field right now," Shiro said.

"Hardly," Pidge said.

"How are you holding up?" Shiro asked.

"I'm fine," Pidge said.

"You sound like Keith when he was your age," Shiro said.

"You remember Keith?" Pidge asked. "Like, everything?"

"I remember enough," Shiro said.

"Have you remembered anything about what happened after you got captured?" Pidge asked.

"Nothing that's going to help you," Shiro said and then he pointed. "There's a control panel over there."

"And you don't remember me?" she asked, unslinging her backpack.

"Sometimes I feel like I do, but it's just a flash of your brother," Shiro said. "Did we get along?"

"You didn't used to baby me."

"I don't think I used to have to protect you from the realities of war."

"I'm already dealing with the realities of war," Pidge grunted. "I need power. Give me your hand."

Silence. She looked over her shoulder. Shiro was giving her a funny look.

"I don't mean like take it off or anything," Pidge said. "But they're both Galra tech so their power requirements might be compatible."

Shiro stepped forward and held his hand out. Pidge hunted around for a port or access panel. There was a latch at the joint. Looking inside she found what she was looking for and after removing the plating under the control panel she had rover point out the power cable leading into it. She yanked out a length and hitched Shiro up to the unit.

"You're good to go," Pidge said.

Shiro held out his arm carefully as it started to glow. The control panel lit up soon after. It took her a bit to realize that they were disconnected from the main drives.

"Rover," Pidge said. "Get outside and get a scan of this section of the ship. She pulled out her laptop and brought up the schematics she'd stolen back when they'd first infiltrated it. Soon enough, Rover was back with the scan and Pidge was able to pinpoint which part of the ship they were in.

"This way," Pidge said.

They wound up a few decks up. Pidge didn't appreciate the workout. She wound up cutting through a bulkhead with her Bayard to get into a proper data room where hopefully there'd be some record of prisoner transfers.

"Damnit!"

A thoroughly destroyed data room.

"Rover, buddy, help me find something," she said. "Anything." She started going through data crystals. "Fried," she mutterred. "Fried, smashed, ugh."

"This is weapons fire," Shiro said.

"I can see that," Pidge said.

"That means someone survived the crash to come in here and make sure the data was destroyed," Shiro said.

"We scanned for life signs," Pidge said.

Shiro frowned.

"We passed a bunch of downed droids on the way here," Pidge said. "Maybe one of them made it through the crash and had a protocol to destroy data in the event of a crash."

"Maybe," Shiro said. "Keep looking. I'm going to watch the door."

Pidge shrugged. Rover was better at looking than Shiro was anyway.

They didn't find anything though.

"Damn it!"

She started throwing things. Because having a tantrum in front of Shiro was better than bawling like a child.

* * *

"Oh great leader," Lance said. "Do I have permission to get in my lion?"

Lance had been pulling the schtick ever since they had left the training deck. Keith had taken to ignoring it after he realized Lance was making fun of him. They took off and flew through a wormhole Allura opened for them.

"Okay, I can figure this out," Lance said. "Um, yeah, there's the fifth planet. There's energy signatures in one small part of one of the continents. I think that's fusion?"

"Follow me in," Keith said.

"Yes, sir!" Lance said. "A bold plan."

"I didn't ask to get put in charge," Keith said.

"No, you're just the one who goes off telling Shiro I'm not taking things seriously."

"I never said that to him," Keith said. "But you don't, you don't take things seriously."

"I do too."

"Can we just do this?"

Lance sighed, as if Keith were the one trying his patience.

"Alright," Lance exclaimed, as if they hadn't just argued. "Time to make first contact. Let's hope there aren't any Borg."

Keith didn't know what the Borg were. He'd never kept up with social media back on Earth, but he was sure it was some meme that Lance would ridicule him for not knowing. "They've already had first contact," Keith said. "It didn't go well."

"That's fair," Lance said. "Alright. Um… There're life signs all over the planet."

Keith's breath hitched.

"Give me a second," Lance said. "Pidge is the one who's good at this stuff. Umm… There's a bunch of different species, but… There's a cluster around that energy source. Can I… Okay, yeah, so, if I'm reading this right, there's one species that's clustered around that energy source, and there's about fifty of them."

"Fifty?" Keith asked. "That's all?"

"Yeah," Lance said. "They probably couldn't get that many off their home world. That sucks. I mean, yesterday we thought they were all gone, but still."

There should be more. The colony had always been doomed, but still, there should have been more.

"Do you want me to hail them?" Lance asked.

Keith hesitated. "Go for it," he said. "Just… This is important Lance."

There was a pause on Lances end, and then. "Opening hailing frequencies," he said.

"Inhabitants of Actic Five, inhabitants of Actic Five, this is the Blue Paladin of Voltron," Lance said, now without hesitation. "Requesting an open channel. I repeat, this is the Blue Paladin of Voltron, requesting an open channel, over."

They waited a moment.

"Try again," Keith said, but then…

"Are you Galra?" a familiar voice came in over the comm.

"Negative," Lance said. "We are enemies of the Galra Empire. Are you the former inhabitants of Rigel Seven?"

"We are," the voice said. Keith knew that voice.

"Well we're glad there are survivors," Lance said. "We came across Rigel Seven yesterday, we thought we'd check the surrounding systems."

"We need help. Please. We need help. We cannot survive here."

"We want to talk about that," Lance said. "We'd like permission to land. Please send coordinates and landing protocols."

"How much clear space does your ship require?"

"Units don't translate, but… I have eyes on the facility you're broadcasting from. We've got two ships and we'll need a clear space that's about three times as wide and twice as long for both of us."

"Yes," the voice said. Kametol said. His name was Kametol. "I'm sending you coordinates in relation to this transponder. This planet is measured in one thousand degrees around the equator, and five hundred degrees from equator to pole."

"Gyeong, do you know how to work that out?" Lance asked.

"Give me a minute," Keith said.

"Any landing procedures or defenses we need to worry about?" Lance asked.

"None," Kametol said. "No one has landed on this planet since we left our home world. We await your arrival."

"See you soon, then," Lance said.

Lance cut the channel.

"Was that too easy?" Lance asked.

"What do you mean?" Keith asked.

"Strange aliens call them up and ask to land and they're just like, 'sure, no problem.' Just seems weird. I thought I'd have to convince them we weren't a threat or something."

"They're desperate," Keith said. "There's only fifty of them there. This probably wasn't a stable colony before the Galra attacked."

"Did you work out those coordinates?" Lance asked.

"Follow me in," Keith said.

Lance opened an FTL comm line with the castle and let Coran know that they'd made contact and were landing.

They landed in a barren field. It used to grow crops. Keith could remember it now clearly, the land around them, the mountains and the trees.

"Okay," Lance said. "I've got a list of the elements in the air outside, but I don't know if they're toxic."

"Keep your helmet on this time," Keith said.

"I told you, I needed to activate my headpiece," Lance protested.

"No, you needed to keep your helmet on," Keith said. "Meet me outside."

Lance was scowling at him when he got out, but he was wearing his helmet with the full visor activated.

They didn't have to wait long.

"Okay," Lance said. "That is definitely an alien. Dude, Gyeong, are these blob people?"

Keith didn't recognize whoever was approaching them. They were in their compact form. Rolling was their most efficient method of getting around. They stoped about ten meters away.

"Greetings," Lance said, raising his arm in a sort of wave.

Their greeter narrowed and shot up, legs forming first and then a head and arms. Keith still didn't recognize them.

"Greetings visitors," they said. "Please, find welcome here. I am Daramit, I will guide you to the Council."

"Hey, thanks," Lance said. "My name's Lance, and this is…Keith. Do your people shake?" He was holding out his hand.

"We vibrate certain cell clusters to generate heat when our environment does not provide enough," Daramit said.

"Lance," Keith said. They didn't shake hands, touch was more intimate for them. "It's a greeting among our people that involves holding hands. It's fine if you don't want to."

"How… interesting," Daramit said. "If you'll follow me." He turned around.

"Don't touch anyone," Keith muttered at Lance.

Daramit walked with them back to the small town that made up the entirety of the planet's civilization. Lance was unfazed by the hand shaking mess and asked question after question, wanting to know everything about their guide. He kept it light though. He didn't bring up anything about the Galra or about the dire plea for help that Kametol had made.

Keith had his eyes on Daramit. He could see it in his coloring, and in his gait, and in the tremors that moved through his form, he could see the side effects that came from shadow sickness. Which didn't make sense. If there were only fifty of them left then they should have all been able to cycle through the ships for access to the lights. There wouldn't have had to have been any rationing. There was more than enough space for fifty.

They reached the town center, and Keith could see that not much had changed since he had died there. There were few buildings that had been built after they landed. Most work that needed to be done indoors was done in the ships or the habitat structure that had been built when this planet had just been a research outpost. Everything had been built around their need for the special lights brought from home.

Keith gasped when they entered the habitat structure. Most of the colony must have been in there. All of them showing signs. It wasn't that that gave him pause though. It was the ceiling. Most of the lights were out. Keith looked around. Several people were starting to assume humanoid shapes, some of them he recognized, but many more were keeping themselves flattened out to capture as much light as they could.

Keith knew exactly what had happened to the others. How the colony had been reduced to almost nothing. They'd all been taken by the shadow.

* * *

"What exactly is the problem?" Shiro asked.

"Lance PROMISED them that we'd relocate them," Keith said.

"Dude," Lance said. "They'd all fit in Blue. We've got wormholes. We can get them wherever they need to go."

"Where do they need to go, Sanchez? Did you already find a planet for them? One that's empty, or willing to take them, one where they'll get the right light filtered through their atmosphere?"

"I don't know," Lance said. "Heck, I'm sure the castle's lights could be altered to give them what they need."

"We can't just stuff them into the castle," Keith said.

"Why not?" Lance asked, getting up in his face. "We're supposed to save the Galaxy, right? We can't just let an entire species go extinct. Or does saving the Galaxy just mean blowing stuff up for you?"

"This castle's almost been blown up twice in the past two days," Keith said. "Quick way to make sure they do go extinct."

Shiro shot a quick look at the Alteans and held up his hand to get the two paladins to calm down. He turned to Keith. "What exactly is the issue with the light?"

"They're like giant algae people," Lance said.

"I believe Keith was taking point here," Shiro said.

Keith scowled at him. He knew he would have probably preferred to let Lance do the talking, but briefings were something he was going to need to work on.

"Their physiology requires specific bandwidths of light. Actic five has too much ozone in the stratosphere. It blocks most of the ultraviolet they need."

"They didn't say anything about Ozone," Lance challenged.

Keith flushed. "You must not have been paying attention."

"I was too paying attention," Lance said. "I paid attention to everything. I was the one doing all the talking. You just kept on staring at people."

"Lance," Shiro said. "Keep going Keith."

"They had a bunch of UV lights in the ships they'd arrived in, and they've been cycling people through so they could get by. None of their systems were designed to last so long without proper maintenance though. A malfunction a few years ago caused a power surge that destroyed a bunch of their lights. There just wasn't enough left to keep so many alive."

"So they starved to death?" Hunk asked.

"Pretty much," Keith said.

"Did they give you specifications for what a new planet would need?" Pidge asked.

"I'll send it to you," Lance said.

"Well, long term they need to be relocated," Hunk said. "But right now, this is an engineering problem. Do they have enough power."

"They're cycling the fusion reactors from the ships that brought them there," Lance said. "All they're using them for, for the most part, is light, heat, and water purification. They don't have the means to make anything but rudimentary tools, so besides what they brought with them, which wasn't much, they're basically bronze age technologically. So they've got a ton of power and not much to do with it."

"So send them a bunch of lights for now?" Hunk asked.

"We can certainly spare them," Coran said. "Grab what you need. We can fabricate replacements later."

"Keith, go ahead and take Hunk with you this time," Shiro said. "Lance you can be Coran's helper.

"I'm the one who talked to them," Lance said.

"We don't need anymore promises we don't know if we can keep," Shiro said. "Unless you've got experience with electrical engineering I think you'll be a bit superfluous."

Lance didn't look happy at that, but then again, he would have just fought with Keith for the rest of the mission. Shiro couldn't really blame him for what he'd said to the refugees on Actic Five, and the instinct to help was good. He just wasn't trained for diplomacy. None of them were, besides Princess Allura.

"Dismissed," Shiro said. "Pidge, you're with me."

Pidge groaned, and god, what was he doing with a kid out in all of it. He took Pidge back to his office and had him mess around with the data. It felt perfectly and horribly mundane and set an itch to do something, but it was doing something. It was necessary, and he didn't just get out of it so he could scratch the itch.

"Does the castle's cartography list each planet's attributes?" Shiro asked.

Pidge had his head in his hands, staring blearily at the screen. "Yep."

"Alright," Shiro said. "Run the time series over again. Let's see if there's a pattern based off planet attribute."

Pidge groaned as he typed with one hand. Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.

* * *

"So how does this thing work?" Lance asked. He wasn't interested in it the way Hunk would be interested, but it was still cool.

"Pretty simple," Coran said. "The fabricator has a bank of most raw elemental atoms and it can form just about any atomic bond. There are few things we can't fabricate right here as long as we know the molecular makeup. And as long as we have enough energy."

Lance had been helping Coran out for a few hours when they'd stopped to get a part from the fabricator that Lance had been hearing about.

"It's taking forever though," Lance said.

"Well sure," Coran said. "Can't just put a few septillion atoms together all at once."

"So what's this thing going to do?" Lance asked, gesturing to the round device that was taking shape in front of them.

"It's a buffer disk for the ship's energy crystal," Coran said. "It stabilizes things. Ten thousand phoebes sure did wear away at the old one."

Lance pulled out his phone, on its last legs until they worked out how to charge it. Lance had been working out a problem for Pidge, and Hunk had helpfully had a pdf of the Chemist's Cookbook on his own phone.

"So what about this?" Lance asked, holding up his phone and the diagram drawn on it.

"Are the numbers the number of protons in an atom?" Coran asked.

"Yeah," Lance said. "And the lines are shared electrons." He pointed at the bottom of the screen. "Hunk said that that's dosing in number of molecules."

Coran took hold of the phone and started typing at the console for the fabricator.

"Anything else you humans have been missing?" Coran asked.

"Oh, so much," Lance said. "But we'll work it out. This is what we need now though. Hey, is this what made the pajamas in my room? They fit perfectly."

Coran chortled. "Fabricate clothes? What will you humans think next? Some things have dedicated machinery. The fabricator takes a great deal of energy, and plenty of time as well. Everything in here is what we use to keep the castle running. Next door we have everything that handles the less essential things, like a machine that can spin out fabrics in just about any configuration. It already has extensive thread banks, so you don't need to create anything at the atomic level."

The fabricator dinged and Coran pulled the disc out of the chamber.

"Come on then," he said. "We'll get this installed and by the time we're back your item should be done."

They walked out of the room that contained the fabricator and Coran led the way to wherever the energy crystal was.

"So do you think it'll be that hard to find a new home for those people?" Lance asked.

"It could be," Coran said. "But don't worry. We'll help them, whether that means giving them supplies or relocating them."

"Is that an Altean value?" Lance asked.

"Helping people?"

"Helping strangers," Lance said.

"I suppose it is," Coran said. "King Alfor forged a great alliance that aimed to ensure peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy. Altea had come a long way and I suppose we as a people wanted to help others get there too."

"So is that a value you find out there?" Lance asked. "Like, does it pop up over and over again between civilizations?"

"To some extent or another," Coran said. "Certainly not in every civilization, and it's often curbed by societal preferences, of course, but many of them for sure. A lot of them. Civilizations only form when people can work cooperatively. Empathy tends to help with that."

They entered a room with a giant glowing crystal that seemed to pulse with energy.

"Does that thing power the castle?" Lance asked.

"It sure does," Coran said. "Now, I want you to stand by this panel here. When I tell you to, press this button, and then tell me when this bar here gets to this line here," he said, pointing.

"No problem," Lance said. Coran walked over to the crystal and started fiddling with it. It didn't look nearly as cool as a warp core, but it was pretty cool that a giant glowing crystal powered whatever process opened up the wormholes.

"So are there a lot of commonalities like that?" Lance asked. "Like commandments?"

"Commandments?"

"Like, 'though shalt not kill,'" Lance said.

"Well that's a pretty common one," Coran said. "With various caveats. Also pretty helpful for civilizations to form."

"Okay," Lance said. "But do you have anything like that? Only there's ten of them. Ten Commandments?"

"Just a moment," Coran said. He tapped his earpiece. "Going to be switching to emergency power for just a moment." Lance heard it in his own earpiece, same as everyone else on the ship.

Coran looked at Lance. "Go ahead and press that button."

Lance nodded and the crystal stopped glowing. Coran got back to what he'd been doing.

"So what's this about?" Coran asked.

"Um," Lance hadn't been sure about directly asking. "Do Alteans have a religion?"

"Oh," Coran said. "You all seem so comfortable out here, I forget how little your species has interacted with others outside your planet. I suppose a lot of people ask similar questions when they first start to branch out."

"So what's the answer?" Lance asked.

"About Altea, or the question many ask eventually?" Coran asked. "Where are we on that bar, by the way?"

Lance muttered a curse and looked down. "Um, you're a bit past the mark actually," he said.

"Good, good," Coran said. He twisted something into place and stood up, turning to face Lance. "I didn't really study this," he said. "Princess Allura could probably tell you a lot about the history of Altean religions, of which there were many over our very long history, but the most I can tell you, is that ideas about gods, and creation, pop up from planet to planet. They are as alike as they are different. I'm sure you can find many with common ground to your own. But if you're looking for something universal, I don't think I can help you."

Lance sighed. It was supposed to be about faith anyways, so why was he out looking for proof.

Coran touched his earpiece again. "Switching off emergency power in a moment," he said, and then to Lance. "You can go ahead and press that button again."

Princess Allura came in over the comms next. "Is everything calibrated over there? Keith and Hunk are ready to come back."

"You may open a wormhole at your convenience, Princess," Coran said. He tapped his comm off and turned back to the crystal.

"When it was first discovered, by my great great great grand father I might add, the Balmera that grow these crystals, great planet sized beings, older than any civilization we've encountered, the Balmera were worshiped by some on Altea. Some of them were able to commune with them, and it's said that that's where Altean alchemy first came from."

"I guess the answers aren't just out there waiting for me," Lance said.

"No, I don't suppose they are," Coran said. "Give it some time. Trust yourself that you'll work it out."

"Huh," Lance said. Not worrying about it for just then suited him just fine. "So about what happened earlier. Was it really a big deal that I said we'd relocate them?"

"Oh, don't worry about that too much," Coran said, kneeling down to reattach the panel that had covered the buffer disk. "You're going to make mistakes. Everyone does. This was hardly a major one."

Lance saw Rover come in out of the corner of his eye. Time to wrap up. He didn't want to have the conversation in front of Pidge. He didn't really want to talk to Pidge at all until he had his peace offering.

"I guess," Lance said. "Haha, yeah. Not a big deal."

"You know you remind me a bit of myself when I first got off Altea and started as an Ensign in the Alliance."

Lance looked over his shoulder for Pidge, not the sort of thing he wanted overheard, but the little gremlin wasn't there.

Lance looked back over at Rover that had just settled on top of the crystal. He saw it flash red. There was the briefest moment of confusion, and then Lance felt words fail him. Instead, he vaulted over the console, running right for Coran. He leapt up onto the raised platform that held the crystal, grabbed Coran, and lurched the both of them back over the edge. He saw a bright white flash and briefly felt a moment of heat on his back and pressure in his head.

* * *

The lights were off when they got back to the castle.

"Keith to Shiro," he said, waiting a moment. "The bay doors won't open."

"The castle's power generator exploded," Shiro said. "Land in front of the Castle and meet up in the med bay."

"Who's hurt?" Keith asked, feeling a sickly tension coiled up inside of him.

"It's Lance," Shiro said. "Grab Hunk, and get over here."

Keith landed in a rush and dashed out of Red. He did not grab Hunk. The halls blurred around him. Arriving outside of the med bay he stopped, afraid of what he'd find. He shook off memories of a hospital hallway and walked in. There was Lance, lying face down on the exam table. Coran and Shiro were standing over him.

"Is he…"

"He's alive," Shiro said. "He's got a nasty concussion and a number of crystal shards in his back. Probably internal bleeding as well."

"What the hell happened," Keith asked.

"We don't know," Coran said. "We'd just replaced the buffer disk, everything was in normal levels, there weren't any energy spikes. I'd say it just blew up, but Lance knew something was wrong, he pulled me off the platform right before it happened."

"He needs a healing pod," the Princess said. "But those won't run until we restore main power."

"So why aren't you fixing it now?" Keith asked.

"We don't have another crystal," Coran said.

"Where do we get one?" Keith asked.

"We need a Balmera," Coran said.

"What's a Balmera?" Hunk asked arriving behind Keith. "Hey, what happened to Lance?!"

"No time to explain," the Princess said. "The rest of the Lions are locked in the bays since we don't have power. Hunk, take Coran in the Yellow Lion. You're going to retrieve a new power crystal for the ship."

Coran was already heading to the exit, clapping Hunk on the shoulder. "The sooner we get it the sooner we can heal him."

"Is he going to be alright?" Hunk asked as he turned to follow Coran.

"How long is that going to take?" Keith asked. "You can't open up wormholes now, can you?"

"With luck there will be a Balmera close enough," the Princess said. "I couldn't say how long it will take."

"What about the Galra ship?" Shiro asked. "Their power source could still be intact."

The Princess frowned. "We never detected it. Though we weren't specifically looking for it. Unless it was well shielded though we would have picked it up when we searched for survivors. It was most likely destroyed on impact."

"So it could be there," Shiro said. "Would you be able to detect it on scanners if it were there?"

"Of course," the Princess said. "We would have to dig around a bit to make sure we aren't missing anything but if it wasn't destroyed we would be able to find it."

"Then Keith, I need you to take Princess Allura to the crash site in the Red Lion," Shiro said.

"I'm not leaving him!" Keith said, baring his teeth in challenge.

"What?" Pidge asked.

"This isn't up for debate," Shiro said. "I can't fly your lion, and mine can't get out of the castle. The best thing you can do for him now is to help look through the Galra ship."

"Um, I'll send you the schematics of the ship," Pidge said. "You can pinpoint where to search. Also, I was thinking I could maybe siphon energy from the Green Lion. Enough to power a healing pod at least."

"Get on that," Shiro said. "Keith…"

Keith looked at Lance, lying prone and defenseless. "You'll stay with him."

"I'll stay with him," Shiro said.

Leaving him felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.

"Come on Princess," Keith said, turning to go.

"He'll be alright," the Princess said.

"Don't say that if you don't know it's true," Keith said harshly.

* * *

Shiro watched Keith leave.

"Am I missing something?" Pidge asked.

"How long to jury rig something with your lion?" Shiro asked.

"I still haven't figured out what powers them," Pidge said. "This is more Hunk's area anyway. I'll see what I can do, but I don't even know if it's going to be compatible."

"There might not be a Balmera close by, and there probably isn't anything left in the Galra ship. So, this is probably our best bet," Shiro said. "Doesn't have to be pretty, just get it done."

Pidge nodded and left, leaving Shiro alone with Lance. He went back to pulling shards of crystal out of his back. Lance didn't seem to notice. The explosion had nocked him deeply unconscious and he hadn't come round once since it had happened. Shiro stopped himself from considering the effects of a traumatic brain injury like that if Lance didn't get the advanced healing the Alteans were promising.

He considered Keith's behavior. He'd been alright letting his one-sided crush be before, but now they were if anything, more antagonistic towards one another than they had been at the Garrison, and Keith's judgement was obviously clouded by it. It wasn't healthy. Not for the first time, Shiro wished that Keith hadn't set his sights on a boy who seemed hell bent on picking fights with him. Though looking down at the boy who's back was slowly weeping blood from a couple dozen lacerations, Shiro realized he didn't really know much about him.

Lance was under his command, one way or another, and here he was grievously wounded and Shiro still didn't know why. For all that Shiro'd been the Garrison's star fighter pilot, he'd never thought he'd be a battle commander, and he couldn't help but think that he was doing a horrible job of it. He didn't know how to deal with Keith; Pidge and Hunk had one foot out the door; he didn't have patience for Lance, and at the end of the day he was commanding children in an intergalactic war.

He grabbed some more gauze and padded some of the deeper cuts. He saw enough blood when he closed his eyes at night.

"I guess I can see what he sees in you," Shiro said. "A bit. That was a good save back there. Good instincts." Somehow Lance had known what was going to happen, and he'd gotten Coran out of the way of the blast. "What did you see though?"

Shiro heard a scraping noise coming from down the hallway. He frowned looking out the doorway, going on alert.

"Pidge," Shiro said, activating his comm. "Where are you right now?"

"I'm in the bay with my lion," Pidge said.

Shiro narrowed his eyes at the door, remembering the data room on the Galra ship. "Stay on the line," he said, moving towards the door.

The scraping noise was getting closer. Now he could hear it better. It was a thunk scrape, thunk scrape. He glanced back at Lance, still lying face down on the table. Rushing back, he picked Lance up and placed him on the floor behind the exam table on his side in the recovery position. He listened to the scraping noise, a tension rising up in him. When it got close enough he rushed forward the doorway, charging his hand as he crossed the threshold, kicking off of the opposing wall to rapidly turn down the hall and slice his hand through the head of a sentry droid. There was another one behind it. Letting out a guttural yell, Shiro charged, shifting left in anticipation of the plasma bolt that shot past him a moment later and then another sentry fell to his arm.

"Champion," a horribly familiar voice said. A voice he had heard in his dreams. The coldly amused voice that ordered the release of the drhakar whenever it was time to finish off an opponent who had lost and was no longer fit to entertain him anymore.

"Sendak," said Shiro with gravel in his voice, his pulse pounding his ears. "I'm not your champion."

"You will be," Sendak said. "After I deliver the lions of Voltron to Zarkon and the witch is done with you, you will be the star of my new arena on my new ship."

Shiro lunged forward. Leaping up to make up for the two feet Sendak had on him, he brought his arm down in a glowing arc only to be brought up short by Sendak's own arm, a mechanical monstrosity that seemed to be connected to his shoulder by a thick arc of purple energy, the same color as Shiro's own arm when it was activated. Shiro latched onto the metal forearm and used it as leverage to aim a roundhouse at Sendak's head. He got a grunt in response and then he was flung away, at least twenty feet down the hall. He landed in a sprawl that he sprung back up from only to see Sendak's mechanical arm shooting out from his body. It collided with his chest and sent him back, even as massive metal fingers closed around his torso. Suddenly the arm was reeling him back. Shiro jabbed his glowing hand into the wrist joint and was suddenly dropped.

Shiro lost himself in the fight after that. Sendak was massive, and Shiro was at a disadvantage in the confines of the hallway, but Sendak was also big enough to be slow. Shiro lunged and dodged, narrowly missing a punch that could have stopped a truck before he took a shallow swipe at an exposed flank. Sendak roared as Shiro looped around behind him and used a fixture on the wall as a springboard to leap up onto his back.

"Order your sentries to stand down," Shiro said, his glowing hand millimeters away from Sendak's throat.

"Victory or death," Sendak said.

Shiro was about ready to give it to him when- "Let him go, or this one dies."

Shiro hadn't even seen the other Galra, he'd been so focused on Sendak, but there he was. He was standing in the door to the infirmary and he held Lance up by a fistful of his hair.

There was a moment when no one moved. Shiro could see Lance's face twisted in pain, even when he was clearly unconscious. Shiro powered down his arm and was then violently thrown off of Sendak.

"Shiro," Pidge's voice came in over the open comm. "What's going on?"

"Promise you won't hurt him and I'll surrender," Shiro said.

"Shit!" Pidge cursed.

"He's not even armed," Shiro said. "There's no honor in killing him.

"Right," Pidge said. "I need my armor."

"What's your plan even?" Shiro asked, as a sentry approached him with some manner of restraints. "The bay doors are closed, and you're not getting them open unless you can power the ship."

His arms were wrenched behind his back and something was clamped over his forearms such that his elbows were almost touching behind him causing him to arch his back.

"We brought our own crystal," Sendak said. "And there's no need to open the doors just yet. Once we've collected the other two this ship will fly itself to the heart of the empire."

"Right," Pidge said. "I'm on that too. Fucking hell."

Shiro grit his teeth. There weren't any magical lions here now. It was just Pidge against the sentries and the Galra. Just Pidge to be the gremlin in the works.

* * *

"You picked the wrong week to get clean, Gunderson," Pidge told herself as she slapped her cheeks as if having the castle invaded by Galra hadn't woken her up enough.

The first stop was the armory. It was a pain getting into her armor by herself, her body was just generally achy, but she managed. She grabbed her Bayard and stored it in her thigh piece. She eyed the only one left and grabbed it, storing the blue Bayard in her backpack. She looked up at Rover.

"Find me an air vent buddy."

Rover chirped at her, taking off and Pidge followed. The vent was small, even for her. Grumbling, she got in. She had to drag her backpack behind her.

"Pidge to Keith," she said.

"Keith here."

"Get your butt back here," Pidge said. "Galra have taken the castle."

"No!" The princess said.

"What about Lance?" Keith asked.

"He's a hostage," Pidge said. "They've got Shiro too. I'm in an air vent. You need to get back before they get main power back online, they've got a crystal of their own."

"We shouldn't have left," Keith said, cutting the comm.

Moving through the vent was not fun.

"Alright buddy, come here," she told Rover.

Rover got within arms distance and she latched on with both hands.

"You're just going to have to drag me through this chute buddy," Pidge said.

What was closest?

"Take me to castle's main sensors," she said.

It wasn't a great way to travel, but having Rover drag her was better than crawling through the narrow duct. It wasn't long before she heard the steady thrum of power return to the ship. That meant shields were probably back up.

"Pidge to Keith?"

"We're stuck outside," the princess said. She could hear Keith swearing. "We're going to cut communications. If they can't hail us they can't use Lance or Shiro against us. They'll be safer that way. I need you to shut down shields."

"Shields are at the top of the castle," Pidge said. "I'm at the bottom and I'm sure as hell not getting in any elevators while the Galra have control. I'm stoping at main sensors first so they can't just scan for me when they realize I'm still here. I'll get to the shields when I get there."

"Be careful," the princess said. "But make sure they're more worried about what's happening inside the castle than they are about us. The last thing we want is for them to drag Shiro and Lance out front to make an ultimatum."

"Well, I'll see what I can do," Pidge said. And then, because she couldn't help but be pithy, she added, "I know I'm supposed to be using the buddy system, but I'm all out of buddies."

"They're hailing us," Keith said. "Cutting communications. Get me back in there Pidge."

The line went dead, and Pidge felt like she was all alone. Rover kept dragging her.

"I've got my battle buddy right here," she said. Rover chirped at her and vibrated just a little bit.

Sensors first, then propulsion; if worse came to worse there was no point in letting them take the castle with the lions in it. After that she could cut the elevators. No reason the Galra should be able to use them if she couldn't.

"This is how I found out what really happened to Matt and Dad," Pidge told Rover. "No team. Just me and my tech."

Rover chirped supportively to her, turning a corner. Pidge's stomach lurched a bit at the change in direction. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, leaving her feeling, if anything, worse.

"It should be nice having a team, shouldn't it?" Pidge asked. "It was always great working with Matt, I mean he could keep up, you know? But here we are, we're supposed to save the galaxy or something and they're acting like I'm in space war day care."

Rover gave a mechanical hum in sympathy.

"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Matt got banned from the Garrison's day care? He brought a rocket in his backpack and set it off on the playground. Mom still talks about it whenever Matt brings someone home."

Rover stopped moving, and Pidge regretfully craned her neck up to see a grate blocking their way.

"We here, buddy?"

Rover chirped an affirmative.

Pidge sighed. She pushed the grate out and peeked into the room. It was thankfully empty, but the duct was unfortunately about twenty feet off the ground. Pidge sighed. Using her suit's thrusters had been no fun in zero-g, and she didn't think she'd suddenly be good at it planet side. She closed her eyes and willed the vertigo away and jumped out. She didn't wait at all, just activating her thrusters the moment she cleared the opening. She opened her eyes and saw the opposite wall approaching fast. She gave a very undignified squawk and cut thrusters. Hitting the wall, she just fell, only managing to restart her thrusters a few feet above the ground when she wasn't even remotely upright in relation to the ground. She hit something and latched on, cutting her thrusters before they could drag her off. She fell off of whatever she'd latched onto and hit the ground with a thud.

She spent a moment, stunned and lying on the ground, before she even let out a pained groan. Rover nuzzled against her cheek, giving a worried whirr. It was the clank of a sentry's feet that got Pidge moving again. They'd probably already seen her on the sensors. She got up and hid behind the control panel she'd just collided with. She summoned her Bayard and activated it.

"Let's see if Keith's managed to teach me anything," Pidge muttered. "Hey Rover, you hide over there and when the sentry comes in, you swoop down in front of his face, okay?"

Rover chirped and was no sooner hidden by the door than the sentry entered. Rover acted his part and Pidge jumped up, ignoring the spike in her head. The front of her Bayard shot out on its tether as Pidge swept her arm in an arc. The glowing cord of energy wrapped around the sentry that was already pointing its rifle at Rover. A thought sent a jolt of energy through her Bayard and into the sentry which collapsed into a smoking heap.

There was the sound of more footsteps down the hall. Pidge retracted her Bayard and rushed the door. She closed it and used the tip of her Bayard to fuse the door shut. She then went to the control panel and plugged herself in. A ping of the system told her that there were plenty of redundancies throughout the ship, so instead of destroying it she reconfigured it.

She identified the two Galra on the ship, and the seven sentries, and of course, herself. She took comfort in being able to see Shiro and Lance's bio-signatures on the screen. She input a command that would send the readings specific to the Galra to her suit, then she basically told the system to ignore humans, and to identify the cleaning bots on the ship as organic humanoid lifeforms like herself.

Not everything could be done with a voice commands, but for something low security she was sure it wouldn't be a problem. "Computer," she said. "Activate all cleaning bots. Clean the entire castle, but avoid being seen by anything that's bipedal. Do you understand?"

"Commands understood," the computer's voice said.

There were about fifty dots roaming the castle. The castle's sensors were now at best a major distraction to the Galra and at worst just useless to them. There was a pounding at the door, likely repeated rifle blasts.

Pidge groaned as she looked up at the air duct. "Okay Rover, I'm going to hold on to you and you're going to help guide me."

Rover hovered in front of her and she grabbed on with both hands. Activating her thrusters she approached the grate a lot faster than she'd have liked, with Rover keeping her on course. Letting go at the last moment, she latched onto the ledge of the duct, wiggling about a bit to leverage herself in. She was out of breath and ready to take a break when the door down below caved in. She sighed and latched onto Rover.

"Take me to propulsion," Pidge said. "Did I ever tell you about the time I convinced Matt to add rocket boosters to a shopping cart?"

She didn't meet anyone when she made a quick stop at the elevator control room, or in propulsion or communications. When she finally got to the shield generator Rover chirped at her a warning tone. Pidge peered out the grate and saw a sentry guarding the control panel. That was fine. She carefully dislodged the grate. Luckily they were at ground level. Pidge crept closer, and when the sentry started to turn towards her she sent off the tip of her Bayard to latch on and disable the droid. Rover suddenly gave off a shrill alarm and Pidge ducked just in time for a bolt of plasma to sail over her head. She hadn't even checked the sensors she'd rerouted to her suit.

"I thought I'd find you here," a Galran officer said walking up to her, a blaster in hand. "I did not think you would be so little."

"I've got some bite," Pidge said, retracting the end of her Bayard back to her.

"We'll see about that," the Galran officer said.

"Rover, attack," Pidge said, bringing her arm up to point at the Galran officer.

Rover swooped down at his head. With the same arm motion, Pidge shot off the end of her Bayard, and brought it back so the tether would wrap around the Galran officer. She wasn't expecting him to grab on to the tether faster than she could activate it and use it to throw her aside. She went skidding across the room.

Pidge scrambled back up to her feet in time to see the Galran officer untangling himself from the tether of her Bayard, which had fallen from her grasp. She reached it just as he was pulling himself free. She activated it just as it fell from him.

'Don't wait for them to shoot you,' Keith had told her on the training deck.

She retracted her Bayard and started running at the Galran officer. He was already raising his rifle up to her. She didn't know what to do. She wouldn't get close enough in time. Her legs just kept running, the edge of her Bayard glowed bright as she willed it to its highest setting, she ducked down to sweep her Bayard against the deck in an upwards arc, sending globs of melted metal up at the Galran officer.

He didn't stop though. He aimed at her and Pidge thought of her shield far too late. Everything seemed to slow down, she was still running at him head on, she could feel the shift of her armor as she moved, the auditory absence of a footstep from her boots that she had never noticed before, and she saw the angry sneer on his face and the slight tensing of his hand as he pulled the trigger. Suddenly though, Rover was right in-between them. A bright bolt of plasma erupted from the rifle and Rover exploded in an array of sparks as it struck.

"No!" Pidge screamed and, still running, leapt at the Galran officer, a look of shock on his face. He was so much taller than her, but it didn't matter. Her Bayard went right through the blaster held between them and then through the armor on his chest. A swipe of his arm sent her crashing to the side. She looked up in time to see him crash to his knees, a hand over the gaping smoking wound on his chest.

Pidge could only stare. His destroyed blaster had fallen from his hands and, staring at Pidge, he pulled a knife from his hip. Pidge gasped for breath she didn't know she'd lost. He staggered back up to his feat, a snarl on his lips and murder in his eyes. Pidge watched as the dark red blood streamed out. He took a step towards her and fell down, the knife clattered away. Pidge stayed where she was and watched his eyes film over.

Her breathing hitched. "R-Rover, help me up buddy," she said still staring ahead of her at the dead Galran officer.

"Rover," she said again. "Rover, help me… help."

Rover wasn't coming. Rover was gone. Rover was dead.

A gasping breath was followed by a sob and still she couldn't take her eyes off of the dead eyes in front of her. She didn't know how long she stayed there. It was Allura's mice, of all things, that brought her back. The smallest of them crawling up to her and resting its front paws on her face. She drew in a long shuddering breath.

"I guess you'll do," she said. Another breath and she braced herself and gingerly got up. Stooping down she held out her hand for the mice to climb up. She picked up her Bayard and stowed it before going to grab her backpack from the vent where she'd left it. She set the mice down on the control panel and pulled out her laptop to plug in. She heard a noise behind her and froze. She heard it again.

Turning around she faced the body of the Galran officer, and the small pool of blood that had seeped out from underneath him. The sound came again and Pidge saw the communicator wrapped around his ear. Retrieving it, she put it up to her own ear.

"Haxus, report!" It was Sendak.

Haxus

"Haxus is dead," Pidge said. "You should get off this ship while you still can."

"I'm going to give you one chance to save…"

Pidge ripped the comm from her ear and threw it on the ground, stomping it under her boot. Walking back to her computer she looked over the setup.

"You guys okay waiting here?" Pidge asked the mice.

There were a few squeaks of affirmation.

Pidge wasn't sure she could lock out the bridge, but she could lower the shields and throw the emitters out of calibration. That would give Keith and Allura more than enough time to get back in before the Galra could get them back up.

"Now I just need to get down stairs really fast," Pidge told the mice. "Maybe I'll figure out this jet pack by the time I get to the bottom."

* * *

Waiting in Red for something to happen was torture. Allura tried to reassure him, but nothing she could say would change anything.

"You're wanderers," Allura said. "The universe has put you here for a reason."

"The universe has put us in a lot of places," Keith said. "We've died younger."

Suddenly Allura gasped, and she faced forward, closing her eyes like she had earlier when she'd said she was communicating with the mice. Keith would unpack that later.

"Pidge," Allura whispered.

"What's wrong?" Keith demanded.

"It's…" She gave a sigh of relief. "Pidge is alright. The shields should come down soon."

Keith nodded, ready to act.

"Look," Allura said a few moments later, pointing over his shoulder. "There it goes."

Keith didn't wait, he took off. "Get ready to ditch," he told Allura. He could hear her going below for a quick exit. There was a side entrance she'd specified on the castle and no sooner had Red gotten them there she was gone and a few leaps brought Keith to the front of the castle where they'd be expecting him.

He came to a sudden halt right in front of the doors to the castle, a small blast from Red lit up the entryway, just incase anyone was camped out there waiting for him and Keith charged out and through the doors, his Bayard at the ready and his shield up. That was when he heard a scream behind him. He turned around and saw Pidge bounce off of Red before a few poorly timed bursts of her jet pack saw her land somewhat safely on the ground.

He ran back towards Pidge. "What the hell?"

"Quick way down," Pidge said.

Keith didn't have a response to that. "Is that blood yours?" He asked, looking at the splatter on her helmet and chest.

Pidge's face paled and she looked down and started wiping at the blood with her hands frantically.

"Pidge," Keith said. "Hey, Pidge. Stop." He grabbed Pidge's hands and she looked up at him with wide eyes. "Are they okay?"

"Our boots don't make any sound when we run, did you know that?" Pidge asked.

"What?" Keith asked. They stared at each other for a moment.

"This isn't theirs," Pidge said. "Or mine."

"You good?"

A nod.

Keith stared at her for a moment. "Come on," he said. "Shield up."

They walked through the entryway.

"They had Lance and Shiro on the bridge," Pidge said before an abrupt, "woah!"

Keith had just dispatched the sentry that had turned the corner ahead of them.

"Stay alert," Keith growled. "Can they pick us up on our comms?"

Pidge got a look on her face . "I locked them out," she said. "I should have told you after I stopped at communications. Or no, your comms were off."

Keith tuned out her rambling, Allura was supposed to turn her's back on when she'd left the ship.

"Allura," Keith said, activating his communicator. "They're on the bridge."

"Got it," Allura said. "I've picked up a weapon. I'll be there in a few ticks."

Keith stopped Pidge just before they got to the bridge.

"Stick to cover, keep your shield up, your Bayard has a range, so keep that in mind. You're providing support, I don't want to see you rushing anyone. Got it?"

Pidge nodded. "Um, I've got them on scanners," she said. "Here." She pulled up the layout on her wrist computer, it showed one Galra and one sentry on the bridge. Keith grabbed her arm so he could get a better look.

"What's that?" Keith asked, looking at Pidge's backpack.

Pidge looked over her shoulder. Lance's Bayard was sticking out of the top. She reached back and pulled it out. Keith took it out of her hands. Maybe Lance would be awake to use it.

"I'm just outside the bridge," Allura's voice came in on the comms. Keith peered around the corner and saw her just standing there to the side of the door. She was carrying some sort of fancy staff. With his Bayard and Pidge's that was two close quarters weapons and a taser grappling hook. He grabbed Pidge's shoulder and started moving. He didn't wait for any conference with Allura, as soon as he got to the door he was through.

* * *

A lot of things hurt. He wasn't sure why, and it was hard to lift up his head, which he was pretty sure was in Shiro's lap. He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there like that, but Shiro would probably tell him if anything was wrong, so everything was probably fine. Shiro was really awesome, and Lance pushed away the thought that it was weird to have his head in his lap like that. Everything was fine. Everything hurt, but Shiro was taking care of him.

Shiro seemed to notice that Lance was looking at him. His mouth moved, but Lance couldn't really hear him over the ringing in his ears. Shiro looked concerned so Lance grinned at him and gave him a shaky thumbs up and passed out…

Or did he? Lance wasn't sure what was going on. Lance saw a couple bright flashes of light and he didn't think any time had passed from before, but it had felt like it for a bit. Suddenly he was jolted and his head was no longer in Shiro's lap. He forced himself to roll over and he saw Shiro running away from him. Shiro had his arms bound behind his back. Then he saw what Shiro was rushing towards. Shiro was charging at Sendak, who was on the ship, who had a giant glowing arm that was gripping Pidge like he was an action figure. Gyeong was there too, taking advantage of Shiro slamming into Sendak to take a swipe at the Galra's giant furry head. Sendak dodged and Gyeong stumbled forward past him. Lance's eyes met Gyeong's, and Gyeong yelled something at Lance and threw something at him.

Lance caught his Bayard and stared at it for a moment. He looked back up at Sendak. Sendak had dropped Pidge at some point, and Lance saw Pidge duck out from behind Shiro whose hands were suddenly free. Suddenly Allura leapt like ten feet through the air at Sendak, some sort of glowy staff thing in her hands. Allura was so awesome. Totally hot badass warrior princess.

Lance looked back at his hands that still held his Bayard. Looking back up, Lance saw Sendak throw Pidge across the room, and the general calm he'd been drifting in suddenly shattered. Pidge was a part of his crew. Lance couldn't let anyone hurt him like that. Sendak grabbed Gyeong's arm in his massive robot hand and wrenched it upwards, and something looked completely wrong about Keith's arm after he fell to the floor and Lance slurred a "Hey!" as his hands came up, his Bayard transformed into a rifle. His position was terrible, his breathing wasn't controlled, but he found the spot in between the armor plating on Sendak's torso and he fired.

The recoil on his rifle was hardly anything, Lance had found earlier, but he still wound up falling backwards limply, his head hitting the floor and his thoughts swam for a bit. He stared up at the ceiling. Eventually, Gyeong's face replaced the ceiling and Lance remembered what was going on.

"Did we win?" Lance asked.

Keith smiled at him and said something Lance couldn't hear. They'd won; and hey, Keith was smiling at him, again. Lance counted it as a personal victory. "You smile good," Lance said.

Keith's eyes went a bit wide, but his smile widened as well. Someone grabbed Lance's hand, Keith grabbed Lance's hand, and helped him to sit up. Wasn't Keith hurt? He was smiling at him though. Lance's head swam a bit, but he smiled back at Keith and looked at his hand in Keith's. Keith looked really good smiling at Lance like that.

"You know, I think we can work together," Lance said. "I really… I think we'll make a good team."

Keith said something else to Lance and Lance stared at his lips trying to figure out what, and then Lance was leaning forward, his eyes moving upwards to look into Keith's eyes, which looked a bit shocked. Lance slumped forward, his face against Keith's chest plate, and he passed out.

* * *

Notes:

Hey, so do you think Lance's going to remember what happened? Please let me know what you think. Also, OMG, have you all seen Endgame yet? No spoilers, but so many feels. Alternate chapter for next chapter: Hunk's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day


	4. I Reject Your Reality

I Reject Your Reality

* * *

The first time Hunk had flown through a wormhole, he'd just left Earth and there'd been that alien warship, and even though it was fantastical, he'd had other things on his mind. Every time after that though, there was a bit of wonder, and a strong desire to completely disassemble the Teludav that he'd only really gotten to glance at earlier. They weren't traveling by wormhole now, but even if they had been, Hunk still wouldn't have been able to appreciate it this time.

"Quite lucky there's a Balmera so close by," Coran said. His usually chipper demeanor seeming a bit forced.

"And this healing pod can fix Lance, right?" Hunk said.

"Well," Coran said. "We won't know until we try, but your species seems similar enough. Besides, if it doesn't work, once we have a new crystal we can hop across the galaxy and see how the Ocaampans are doing. They can heal anything."

"Yeah, cool, the people you knew eons ago," Hunk said.

"Well, yes," Coran said. "But I'm sure they're still doing alright for themselves."

Hunk looked at the telemetry and did the mental math to figure out that they had another half an hour of travel to get to this Balmera thing.

"So, this planet is alive?" Hunk asked. "A single organism?"

"It is," Coran said. "You know, my great great great grandfather discovered the first Balmera."

This was in fact the third time it had come up. Still, talking about the Balmera was better than thinking about Lance unconscious in the infirmary. Coran also seemed to know so much about all of the Altean technology, so Hunk took the time to pick his brain. He hadn't had an opportunity yet to ask any of the Alteans about their faster than light travel.

It occurred to Hunk when they came out into orbit around the massive entity that Lance was going to be super jealous that he wasn't getting a chance to be the first human to walk on a Balmera. Hunk was going to have to rub it in; make sure Lance didn't get himself hurt in the future so that he could make sure he got to be the one getting sent on crazy missions while Hunk stayed in the castle and took stuff apart.

"So can I just land anywhere?" Hunk asked.

"Well, let me see," Coran said, peeking over his shoulder at the panel that showed sensor readings. He frowned and reached over to adjust the readout. "I'm not seeing much on the surface; we'll want to look for an opening..." He pointed with his finger. "Here! Head there, the strongest crystals are always below the surface anyway."

Hunk saw the feature Coran was pointing to on the telemetry. It looked like a great big pit.

"So, we're going inside this thing?" Hunk asked skeptically.

"That's right," Coran said.

"This giant living planet thing," Hunk said. "It's going to eat us?"

"It's not going to eat us," Coran said. "It'll welcome us."

"Uh huh," Hunk said. He guessed he was doing it for Lance. "Alright, taking us down."

He piloted the Yellow Lion into the great chasm in the surface of the Balmera.

"Okay," Coran said. "Well, that's not good."

"What is it?" Hunk asked, looking up overhead. "Is the top closing in on us? It's eating us isn't it?"

"No," Coran said. "But it looks like we have some Galran technology in here."

"Crap, crap, crap," Hunk muttered, looking around for any fighters that were about to come around and blow him up.

"There wasn't anything in orbit," Coran said. "Looks like it's just a mining outpost."

"What do we do?" Hunk asked.

Something started shooting at them.

"Down to the bottom," Coran said. "They're shooting at us with turrets, I don't see any fighters yet. The turrets look like they're all near the top. We can take cover over there."

Hunk punched it as fast as he dared inside the cavern.

"Over there," Coran said. "That tunnel's big enough to fit your lion into, but small enough the shield will block anyone from coming in from behind us while we grab a crystal."

"What if they're already in the tunnel?" Hunk asked even as he made his way over.

"We'll deal with it," Coran said.

Hunk landed at the bottom of the pit and the Yellow Lion ran into the tunnel that Coran had pointed to. Once inside, they stopped, and Hunk made sure the shield was fully plugging up the opening to the tunnel.

"Alright," Coran said, excitedly. "Ready to get that crystal?"

"No," Hunk said, climbing out of his seat.

"Come on then," Coran said.

They exited the Yellow Lion and so far, nothing had tried to kill them. He'd have asked which way to go, but so far there was only one way.

Coran pulled out a scanner. "Onward, young Paladin," he said.

"Is there a crystal ahead of us?" Hunk asked.

"Hard to tell, the mineral's everywhere. That's why there's a soft glow coming from all around us. Also, there looks to be some people ahead of us."

"Galra?" Hunk asked

"Doesn't look like it," Coran said. "I don't think there's any in this tunnel."

Hunk summoned his Bayard but didn't activate it.

"Don't you have a weapon?" Hunk asked.

The scanner in Coran's hands transformed into a spear like weapon of some sort.

"Huh."

Coran was holding a scanner again.

Suddenly, in front of them, a head leaned out around a corner. Hunk stopped, his grip on his Bayard tightening.

"Oh, hello there," Coran said.

"You are not Galran?" The head said, leaning forward more, a body following behind it. They didn't look Galran, and besides being humanoid they didn't look human at all.

"We're not Galran," Hunk said. "Is that alright?"

"It is... preferable," they said.

"Are you hiding down here from them?" Hunk asked.

They shook their head. "There is no hiding from the Galra. They will not like that you are here. My name is Shay, why have you come to the Balmera?"

"Oh, well my name's Hunk, and this is Coran. My friend Lance is hurt, and we need a crystal to power the castle so we can use the machine that'll heal him."

"The Galra control all of the crystals that are produced here."

"The Galra are our enemies," Coran said. "We'll take what we need from them."

"The Galra are our masters, and they are strong," Shay said. They put their hand against the wall and closed their eyes. Hunk glanced at Coran who looked like he understood what was happening.

"Come travelers," Shay said. "My grandmother invites you to share a meal with us."

"We'd be delighted," Coran said.

"Weee would," Hunk said, slowly agreeing with Coran. Shay didn't seem hostile, and if there weren't any Galra in the tunnel then they were probably safe for just then, but Hunk really just wanted to grab a crystal and go. Shay started leading them down the tunnel.

"We have not met enemies of the Galra before," Shay said.

"I didn't know the Galra existed until a few days ago," Hunk said. "But they'll probably do terrible things to my planet if they ever get a chance, so..."

"The Galra have been here many years," Shay said. "Grandmother remembers a time before they came, but I do not. They killed so many of her brothers and sisters, and now those of us who remain must work for them."

"That's terrible," Hunk said. "We've seen what they've done to other planets, but, well, the thing is we're supposed to fight them. We're supposed to stop them so they can't hurt people anymore."

"Do you truly think that you can?" Shay asked.

No, Hunk thought, but Shay was looking at him with such hope that of course the only thing he could say was, "of course." He remembered the conviction they had felt when they had first formed Voltron. The people from Rigel Seven had almost been driven extinct by the Galra, an entire planet destroyed; the survivors eking out a subsistence life. Here it seemed an entire people had been enslaved. They would do the same to Earth, when they got around to it, and countless other planets. It left a sick pit of anxiety in his stomach thinking about all the people hurting under the Galra, and the knowledge that people seemed to think he was supposed to be a part of stopping them.

"First though," Coran said. "We'll need a crystal."

"In here," Shay said.

They entered a small cavern that shot off from the tunnel.

Immediately, another Balmeran came up to them. "What are these outsiders doing here?" they asked. "You would invite strangers into our home? What will the Galra do to us?"

"They are travelers on a journey, Rax," Shay said. "We owe them hospitality. Besides, they are enemies of the Galra."

"Then the Galra will kill them, and they will kill us," Rax said, he turned towards Hunk. "You must leave. My sister was wrong to bring you here."

"That is not our way," Shay said. "We do not turn away travelers."

"You need to stop listening to grandmother," Rax said. "Those are the old ways, before the Galra. Shall I lose you, like we lost father?"

"Enough," an older looking Balmeran said. "It is time for supper. You will join us, travelers?"

"Of course," Coran said.

"Grandma, they can't stay," Rax said.

"We won't stay long," Hunk said. "We just need a crystal so we can save our friend. We don't want anyone to get in trouble."

"It is no trouble," Shay's grandmother said. "My name is Myra. Eat with us. Shay, tell Dornin of their needs. Rax, collect two more bowls for me."

Rax scowled at them but went to do as he was told. Hunk and Coran sat down across from the older woman who started ladling some sort of stew into bowls. Meanwhile Shay went to the wall of the cavern and held her hand up to it.

"What is she doing," Hunk asked.

"She is talking to Dornin," Myra said. More Balmerans sat down with them. They seemed to give deference to the older woman. "The Balmera is alive. She is the Life Giver and we are her people. We can commune with her, and she with us, and in that way, we can talk to one another wherever we are within the Balmera. The Galra have long hated that we can do so, that they cannot stop us from communicating. Soon enough, they will have their way, though I don't suppose they will care much afterwards."

"What do you mean," Hunk asked.

"She means that the Galra have taken almost everything they can from our home. It isn't sustainable." Rax said. "She means the Life Giver is dying, and one day, us with her. You have asked us for a piece of her."

"We don't want to hurt the Balmera," Hunk said.

"The Galra don't want to hurt the Balmera," Rax said. "They just don't care."

"The crystals will be taken," Shay said, rejoining them. "Whether it is by the Galra, or our guests. The crystals will be taken faster than the Life Giver can replenish herself. She is glad that a part of her will live on with Voltron."

Whispers broke out among the other Balmerans.

"We never said we were part of Voltron," Coran said.

"The Balmera remembers you, from long ago," Shay said. "Your stories still get told. Though many have come to believe that it is just a myth."

"It isn't," Coran said. "Voltron is back, and we're here to stop the Galra."

"We're going to kick them off the Balmera too," Hunk said, surprising himself.

"You will?" Shay asked, hope in her eyes.

"Of course we will," Coran said. "That's why Voltron exists in the first place."

"Tell us of your journey, travelers," Myra said, and so Hunk did. He told them about finding the Blue Lion, and about fighting the Galra when he got the Yellow lion, about helping the Rigelians and forming Voltron when they fought the Cyborg.

Shay hung off of his every word. Rax scowled at him the whole time.

"I'd love to hear more about your people," Hunk said. "But I really need to get back to Lance."

"Your crystal is ready for you," Myra said. "Go in peace. Shay and Rax will walk you back."

"Grandmother," Rax said, outraged.

She gave him a look that seemed to garner his cooperation.

Hunk and Coran stood.

"You have honored us with your hospitality, and your meal will sustain us on our travels," Coran said formally.

"Yeah," Hunk said. "Uh, thanks."

They left, Shay sticking close next to Hunk while Rax stalked ahead of them.

Shay talked about her people as they walked back to the Yellow Lion. Before he had come to the Balmera he had been helping the Rigelians and seen what they had been reduced to. He had already been exposed to too much of the horrors of the Galra. Now, hearing Shay talk about life as a slave to the Galra sat heavily on his heart.

"Tell me about your customs," Hunk said, if only to change the topic.

Shay's face lit up. "Let me tell you about the rite of first passage," she said. So she did. She talked about their rich history and their culture. "Of course," she said. "That's supposed to be done under the light of the high sun, but none of us have seen it in so long. We just use the brightest chamber for the ceremony now."

Hunk felt a lump in his throat. Had Shay never seen the sun? By the time he reached his lion, he was determined that they would come back, and that they'd free Shay and her people. Up ahead there were a small cluster of Balmerans around a large crystal sitting on top of a hover sled at the edge of the shields of the Yellow Lion. Shay ran up to talk to one of them.

"You will leave this place," Rax said. "You will not return. You put dangerous ideas in her head. There is no fighting the Galra. There is only death."

"It sounds like that's what's going to happen anyway, when they've killed the Balmera," Hunk said.

"That is many years hence," Rax said. "If we are lucky, we still have time to be with one another. My grandmother still has time to see her new grandson come into the light of the Life Giver. Shay still has time to fall in love. The Life Giver is holding out for us, she is giving us every moment she can. Who are we to die at the hands of the Galra when she still pours herself out for us?"

"You've given up on her," Hunk said. "But Shay hasn't." He shouldered past Rax and said his goodbyes to Shay. They waited for all of the Balmerans to leave before they lowered the shield. Of course there were Galra behind them, and Hunk blasted through with extreme prejudice. They cleared the tunnel quickly and soon after that, the atmosphere.

The communications were still down in the castle and Keith must have been away from Red, because he couldn't hail either of them to let them know that they were on their way with the crystal. It wasn't until they were nearly back that Shiro hailed them from the castle and they got the story of the Galra attack.

"What about Lance?" Hunk asked.

"We're using the Galra crystal now, and he's in a healing pod. Princess Allura says he seems to be taking to it well. She and Pidge are monitoring the power output from the crystal, since it and the new buffer disk are both cracked. They're making sure a power surge doesn't fry the pod."

That's why Hunk should be there, instead of playing Paladin/courier. That was something Hunk would be good at. Still, at least Lance wasn't at death's door. Hunk was able to finish the trip a bit more relaxed while he picked Coran's brain.

* * *

"Why is this taking so long?" Keith asked scowling at the healing pod. He tapped at the glass and looked impatiently at Lance's peaceful though unconscious face.

"Come on," Shiro said. "Have a seat."

Keith looked at Shiro and the bowl of food he carried a bit petulantly. He'd refused to go to the kitchens so Shiro had brought him something to eat. Everyone else was fixing the castle up but that didn't exactly fit with Keith's or Shiro's skillsets, so Keith had been allowed to just keep watch over Lance. Pidge hadn't said anything, but she was definitely giving him looks.

"Seriously," Keith said. "They can cross the galaxy in an instant but healing a concussion is what takes forever?"

Shiro gave him a look and Keith sighed and sat down, leaning his shoulder against the pod.

"He's alive," Shiro said, handing him the bowl. "And he's going to be alright when he comes out. And he'll probably get on you about eating more, so…"

Keith grabbed the bowl and shoved a spoonful into his mouth. He looked up over his shoulder at Lance

"So, we need to talk about what happened last night," Shiro said.

"Don't tell him," Keith said.

"I'm not going to out you Keith," Shiro said.

Keith shook his head. "About Sendak," he said.

Shiro looked at him sadly. "We're in a war Keith."

"Just let him be for now," Keith said. "It'll happen again. But this is all still new. And he's just recovering. He doesn't need…" It was always hard on him, in the lives where they fought. Lance might have trained as a sniper, but deep down, Keith knew he wasn't ready for the realities of the war.

"Okay, Keith," Shiro said. "Though, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about." He looked at Keith expectantly.

Keith didn't know what Shiro wanted to talk about though, so he shoved another spoonful of food goo into his mouth.

"I feel like your feelings for Lance may be compromising your judgement," Shiro said. "When I give you an order in the future, I can't have you deciding you don't like it because of Lance."

"If I hadn't left last night Lance wouldn't have gotten hurt again," Keith said.

"You don't know that," Shiro said. "What matters is that you want to make decisions based on your feelings for Lance."

"You don't understand," Keith muttered.

Shiro put a hand on his shoulder. "I think I understand balancing the mission against the wellbeing of someone I care about. I need to know that you can find that balance. If we're fighting this war, then we're fighting this war, and you won't always get to be by Lance's side."

They were pilots so often, throughout their past lives. He should be well used to being separated, of Lance flying one way while he flew another, but loss wasn't something he would ever get used to, no matter how long his spirit kicked around the universe.

"I'll find balance," Keith said.

"Alright number four," Coran's voice came in over his earpiece. "We're going to swap out crystals and the buffer disk now, so keep an eye on that healing pod for us while we switch to emergency power."

"Can't this wait?" Keith asked.

"It's alright if the healing pod loses power for a moment. Lance will be fine," Coran said. "But if a power surge disrupts any of the systems we could be dealing with a much longer downtime. But no worries. We've given the healing pods priority for the emergency power reserves which are topped off now and this should be done before those run out anyway."

Keith didn't like it, but that wasn't really a factor in the matter. The lights dimmed and a lot of the background humming of the ship that was always in the back of his mind shut off. The healing pod was unchanged though, and Keith kept staring at it until everything lit up again.

"Hey Keith. Everything alright there?" It was Hunk this time on the comm.

Everything would be alright when Lance was awake again.

"We didn't lose power," Keith said.

"Cool, cool," Hunk said. "Later then."

"You're not the only one who's looking out for Lance, you know," Shiro said. "We're a team now. We're all going to have to look out for each other. Speaking of which, I need you to keep an eye on Pidge for me. You're right, first kills can be difficult, especially if you're fourteen."

Keith had helped Shiro move the Galran's body from the shield generator room. He hadn't thought about it then, he'd been too focused on Lance, but he suddenly saw Pidge's behavior right after they'd met up after the shields had come down in a new light. He'd thought she'd just been shaken up by the rapid descent from the top of the castle.

"Sure," Keith said, not sure what exactly he was supposed to be keeping an eye on, or why Shiro thought he was the one to do it.

"So, talk him up to me," Shiro said.

"What?" Keith asked.

"Lance," Shiro said. "I don't really get it, but you like him, so tell me about him."

There was so much to tell, but it was hard not to gush about things that had happened in past lives. They'd been together in past lives. He knew what Lance would want him to talk about though.

"I wish you could have seen him in the simulator," Keith said. "I used to go watch when he was in free sim."

"When he was still in the support program?" Shiro asked.

Keith nodded. "He's very creative," he said. "And energetic. He brings that out in his crew also. They couldn't help but to get drawn into his orbit."

Shiro looked at him a bit skeptically and Keith blushed, looking down at his food. He took a couple of bites.

"Anyway," Keith shrugs. "He knows what he wants, and he works towards it with a drive I've never had for anything. That's why he got my spot."

"Maybe it's time to tell me what happened there," Shiro said.

"I told you," Keith said. "They were treating you like shit."

"And?"

"Iverson replaced Simmons, he kept threatening to kick me out because I was upset about you being gone and then he blamed the mission failure on you, I decked him and got kicked out," Keith shrugged. The time between hearing about the Heracles and getting kicked out of the Garrison wasn't something he wanted to talk about. "If this is all really fate, then it put me where I was supposed to be. I felt the Blue Lion calling to me, so I went to find her.

Shiro looked upset, but what he said was, "I'm glad it worked out then," so Keith smiled at him, glad that Shiro wasn't upset with him for getting kicked out. The Garrison had been important to him and he'd vouched for Keith when his school records had flagged him during the application process.

"Alright," Shiro said. "I'm going to go check in on the others. In the meantime, while you're waiting for Lance to get out of there, I got your tablet from your quarters. Time for mission reports. I want four. One for retrieving Red, one for Rigel Seven, one for Actic Five, and one for Sendak. This will be a regular thing from now on."

"Who are we writing reports for?" Keith asked.

"Ourselves," Shiro said. "Keep track of progress, helps to keep an eye out for patterns or issues. Of course, someday we might actually be accountable to someone, so I want to do the work now. It's not just you, everyone will be writing them."

Keith sighed. At the least it would keep his mind off of the boy next to him.

* * *

There was a bright light shining through Lance's eyelids. A lot brighter than the lights in his quarters. Then there was a hissing noise and he started to sit up, only to realize he had already been upright and now he was pitching forward.

"Woah there," someone said, and Lance found himself caught in someone's arms. Someone clad in a red and yellow jacket.

"Gyeong?" Was the only thing Lance could get out before the arms around him repositioned and he was being helped to stand upright. Embarrassingly, he realized that he did need help staying upright. Also, embarrassingly, he realized he was wearing some sort of skintight suit and he was pressed up tight against Gyeong. Then to cap it off, he realized that literally everyone was there. The Princess was there. Shiro was there. So was the little gremlin, looking worse than the last time he'd seen him. They were all smiling at him though.

"Uhhhh, what happened?" Lance asked.

"Let's get you sitting down here," Gyeong said. Lance was guided over to one of the med bay's exam tables.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Shiro asked

"Are you okay?" Gyeong asked, sitting down next to him on the table.

"Um, I was talking to Coran, we were doing stuff with the crystal," Lance said. He didn't feel like answering Gyeong's question, he was still pretty embarrassed and Gyeong kept giving him this piercing look and he was actually smiling, so Lance was sure he had messed up royally somehow in the guy's eyes and he was just waiting to gloat. Still though, he couldn't help but ask, "Is breakfast anytime soon?" He could eat a horse.

"I've got you," Hunk said, he gave Lance a massive hug and headed out of the med bay.

"The Galra planted an explosive on the crystal somehow," Shiro said. "You were injured in the blast."

Lance looked at Coran, who looked fine. Maybe Alteans were made of sterner stuff than he was.

"Do you remember that?" Coran asked. "You seemed to realize something was about to happen. You pulled me off of the platform before it went off. We're still not sure what tipped you off."

Lance shook his head; it felt like it was spinning. "There were still Galra?" he asked swallowing thickly. It had been his job to look for them after the crash and he'd managed to mess it up. "Did they attack? Was anyone else hurt?"

"Just you. Hunk and Coran went to look for a new crystal in a nearby star system so we could power a healing pod for you. Princess Allura and Keith went to look to see if any part of the Galra ship's crystal had survived the impact. That's when Sendak invaded with what was left of his crew."

"I assume that got cleaned up," Lance said. He'd royally messed up if Sendak had had enough people to invade the castle.

"Pidge shut down systems so the Galra couldn't use them and got the castle opened up so Keith and Allura could get back in."

"You shot Sendak," Pidge said.

"Good timing, too," Keith said, practically stepping over Pidge's words. "We probably wouldn't have been able to take him down if you hadn't gotten in a shot just then."

Lance certainly didn't remember any of that. They were trying to make him feel better for some reason.

"We, um, we really do make a good team," Keith said.

Lance looked at him a bit bug-eyed.

"Afterwards, you said…" Keith seemed a bit lost for words. "I cradled you in my arms!"

Lance's face burned, the phantom feeling of Keith's arms around him after he fell out of the healing pod still fresh. "Nope," Lance said. "Don't remember it, didn't happen." He turned away from Keith. "Anyway, sorry I put you all through the wringer like that. I am starving though."

Hunk managed to get back at that moment with a big bowl of food goo.

"My man," Lance said with a bit of forced cheer, holding his hands out. He tried not to eat too voraciously in front of the princess, but he really was starving. "Shiro said you went and got a new crystal for the castle?" he said in between bites.

"Oh, yeah," Hunk said. "That's got to be our next mission."

"You didn't get a new crystal for the castle?" Lance asked.

"Oh, we got it," Hunk said. "But this planet's controlled by the Galra, and they've enslaved the people, forcing them to mine the planet. Oh, and the planet's alive and they're killing it. We're going to free them."

"Awesome," Lance said.

"We're glad to see you're better Lance," the Princess said. "Take your time and then join us on the training deck. We need to prepare for the next mission."

"Will do, Princess," Lance said. "And I'm always glad to see you."

Pidge groaned and any moment he might have been having with the Princess was over. Did Pidge like the Princess too? Was the dude jealous? It wasn't that Lance was worried. Pidge was only fourteen, so no competition.

The others left but Gyeong stayed behind. "So, you're really alright?" He asked.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily."

"I don't want to get rid of you," Gyeong said.

"Oh yeah, you like the competition huh?" Lance asked. "You and the Princess stormed the castle together, huh?"

"There's no competition," Gyeong said, dismissively.

Lance's face burned. "Don't count me out," he said through gritted teeth. "Aren't you supposed to be on the training deck?"

Gyeong looked upset, but he left Lance alone. Lance finished off his food quickly and went to go get changed into his paladin armor. He smelled a bit, but he didn't want them thinking he was taking his sweet time. He would have to train even harder to make up for all of his mistakes. Gyeong would see just how much competition he had, and the Princess would see that he was the guy for her.

Passing the fabrication room on his way to the training deck, Lance made a quick stop as he remembered what he'd been making the day before. Moments later he entered the training deck to see a large holographic representation of what looked like a giant chasm.

"You good?" Hunk asked.

"Ready for the mission," Lance said.

"We're going over the scans from the Yellow Lion. We want to get in before they even know we're there, so everyone's going to need to know their way around," Shiro said.

They went over a basic plan of attack and then they split up. Lance had the phenomenal luck of being paired up with Keith who kept giving him 'looks.' Lance was sure he was thinking about how Lance had been knocked out of the fight with the cyborg, or how he'd messed up with the people from Rigel, or how he'd messed up and let Sendak slip right through his fingers after the crash. Whatever, he could think what he wanted, and Lance would show everyone that he deserved to be on the team.

The Balmera would be the mission where Lance would be the MVP. Shiro would ask Lance to train the others. He would trust Lance to help lead the team and the Princess would see him in a new light.

"Um," Gyeong said. "It's started."

Lance's eyes grew wide as he realized that the bots had been released. He scrambled to draw his Bayard and get started, but it was probably obvious to everyone that he hadn't been ready. He pushed his annoyance with himself down and focused on shooting. He was paired with Gyeong, so he focused on the ones further out while Gyeong engaged with the ones that were right up on them. It went well after that, at least.

A long while later, with preparations done, they split off to go to their lions. Lance, though, caught Pidge before he could leave.

"Found a solution to your little problem," Lance told Pidge, holding up the little bottle of pills. "Coran helped me with the fabricator." He did not get the reaction he expected.

"You told Coran?" Pidge asked anxiously, and with a bit of anger. "Wait, how did you find out? Were you snooping through my things?"

"What?" Lance asked. "No, you told me. Remember? Everyone knows."

Pidge just looked at him like he'd grown another head.

"Right," Lance said. "Well obviously you need these more than I thought. Anyway, one of these is the equivalent of a cup of coffee, but don't overdo it. You really really need to sleep tonight."

"Caffeine!" Pidge exclaimed.

"Yes," Lance said. "…Which you clearly need. I am super glad that you will be staying in your lion."

Pidge snatched the gift out of his hand while looking down at his feet. He'd looked especially down since Lance had woken up.

"So, this was supposed to be a peace offering," Lance said.

Pidge looked up at him with a bit of wariness on his face, but he still said, "thanks." Then he opened the bottle and Lance watched in a bit of horror as Pidge dry swallowed what was probably a very bitter pill.

"Right, well, let's go get to our lions," Lance said. "We've got a bunch of people to free."

Pidge nodded and hurried off.

The Balmera was close enough that they didn't need to use a wormhole, but with the new crystal and everything, Coran didn't want the first time they used the Teludav to be when they needed to do a tactical retreat. Lance was in for a bit of a surprise though when he got into his lion.

"What do you mean the castle's going to follow us through?" He asked, rather put out to realize that no one else was acting surprised to find out that the castle was a massive spaceship.

"How did you think it got here?" Pidge asked.

Lance hadn't actually given it a thought. He did spare a thought, as the castle slowly ascended through the atmosphere, to what the locals must be thinking of the sight. He considered the conversation he'd been having with Coran before everything had gone blank and wondered if the castle was going to become a part of the local mythology of their religion.

They took off, and Lance held back for a bit so he could see the castle ascend. It was surprisingly graceful for something so large and so old. When they exited the atmosphere though, the Princess opened the wormhole and the lions went first. Shiro in the lead, followed by Lance and Gyeong, with Hunk and Pidge taking up the rear. They came out ready for a fight and they got it, but the small Galra ship that opened fire on them as they came through didn't make much of a challenge.

"Just disable it," Shiro said. "We want the Galrans on the surface to have a retreat option."

It was some sort of transport ship, from the look of it, and it was quickly disabled.

"That must have come after Hunk and Coran left," Shiro said. "With any luck it was just here to take a shipment of crystals and it wasn't dropping off reinforcements."

"I can do a bit of reconnaissance," Lance offered.

"These Lions aren't exactly stealthy," Shiro said. "They know we're here; we go in fast and hard; you all know what you need to do."

* * *

Hunk did know what he needed to do. Everyone had readily agreed that the Balmera had to be freed, but it was Hunk who had demanded it once he'd returned from retrieving the crystal. Now that it was actually happening though, Hunk was caught between his conviction that Shay and her people had to be freed, had to be able to see the sun and live on a planet that lived with them, and the urge to just stay on the ship and let everyone else handle everything, because surely they didn't need Hunk.

"You ready buddy?" Lance's voice came through on a private comm.

No, Hunk thought. "Let's do this," Hunk said. Because he didn't want Lance worrying about him. He wanted everyone to be focused on saving the Balmera and the people who called it home.

"We've got fighters coming in from the ship," Shiro said. "Not too many. Hunk, you and I are going directly to our rally point. Lance and Keith, thin out a few of those fighters before you head to yours. Pidge, take out those defenses, once Lance and Keith land you'll be responsible for any straggling fighters."

"Got it," Lance said loudly over the comm as everyone acknowledged their copy.

Hunk and Shiro left the oncoming battle behind them. Passing through the opening of the chasm, bolts of plasma struck their lions as they flew by the cannons that rimmed the top. The Galra were ready for them, but though his lion shook with the impact, he weathered the onslaught and dove down to a side chamber that was midway down the chasm. After landing it took a few deep breaths before he could psyche himself up to exit his lion. Speed was key, there wasn't any point in letting the enemy gather round for his grand entrance, but still, he was safe onboard his lion.

Shiro was already engaging with Galra soldiers when he exited, and Hunk's shield already started taking hits as he took his first steps outside. It took him a moment to remember that he wasn't just trying not to get hit, but that he was supposed to be hitting back. He drew his Bayard. It took him a couple of moments of firing a bit wildly to remember what Lance had taught him. He found cover that was solid enough he could drop his shield and use both arms to wield his Bayard and aim properly, taking out robotic sentries before they could get near Shiro. It took him a moment of frantic searching to realize there weren't any more Galra in their immediate vicinity.

"Move Hunk," Shiro's voice cut in through the noises of the battle above them.

Hunk started running, and moments later a large chunk of a Galra fighter crashed down where he'd standing.

"Shield up," Shiro ordered. "Into the tunnel."

Shiro took the lead moving at a brisk pace.

"That's a balmeran," Hunk shouted immediately as they turned a corner and came face to face with one of the locals. Shiro had a fierceness in battle, and Hunk didn't want any misunderstandings. "Hey," Hunk hollered at the Balmeran. "Tell all your people that we're here to get rid of the Galra. Your people need to hide deep in the tunnels until this is over."

The Balmeran didn't say anything, just placing a hand on the wall to send a message like Shay had done. He turned tail and ran back, the way Hunk and Shiro had come in. It was a few minutes later that Hunk realized something was wrong when they hit a dead end. He glanced at his wrist computer.

"Hold up," Hunk said. "We passed it."

Shiro looked back at him. "I didn't see any offshoots."

That's when they heard footsteps behind them.

"Trap?" Hunk asked with a great deal of trepidation.

"Trap," Shiro agreed grimly. "They must have disguised the entrance to the armory."

Shiro didn't wait for any more analysis of their situation. He grabbed Hunk and moved him to the inside corner of a bend in the tunnel. He didn't wait for any complicated instructions either, pulling him down to the ground into a prone position and positioning his shield arm and Bayard so that Hunk was covered by the shield and the end of his Bayard rested on the top. It was the covered position Lance had shown him in training. Shiro then crouched next to him and activated his own shield resting it on top of Hunk's bayard so there was a shield wall in front of them with a crack big enough for the barrel of his Bayard to poke out.

The sounds of marching boots got louder, and Hunk felt his insides clench up. They'd walked into a trap. Storming enemy bases wasn't Hunks thing. What was he doing there? He couldn't do this. He was going to die. He wasn't ever going to see his family ever again. There wasn't any way out.

"Lance and Keith," Shiro said into the comm. "When you've finished your objective, rally on our position. We've run into an ambush."

"Maybe we should split up?" Lance came in. "I can get to you now."

"Negative," Shiro said. "Stick together. We have a defensible position. We need those shields to come down."

"Copy," Keith's voice came in.

The first sentry came into view down the tunnel. Hunk froze up.

"Start firing!" Shiro ordered.

Hunk pulled the trigger.

* * *

Keith had started the mission worrying about keeping Lance safe, but now he found himself split between him and Shiro.

"Crap crap crap," Lance was muttering to himself over the comm he had opened with Keith while they'd been tag teaming the fighters. "Pidge, you got this?" he sent out on the open comm.

"Yes?" was Pidge's response.

"Okay," Lance said. "Let's get this shield generator."

Shiro had put Keith in charge, but he had no issue with Lance taking the lead. They broke off from the dogfight while Pidge intercepted the nearest fighters. It was a quick trip to their rendezvous point. Keith rushed out of his lion quickly. He wanted to be the first on the ground.

Keith took fire immediately as he made his way down the ramp. His shield took most of the blasts, but some of them hit his armor, causing him to stagger. Keith had the high ground, but all he had was a sword. A move suddenly popped into his head though, something he knew he'd done before. Crouching down, he activated his jets as he leaped. Soaring high for a moment he turned in the air and shot feet first into a cluster of sentries, his shield up, and his sword swinging; they went down quickly. He heard Lance exclaiming something over the comm. A shot to his back sent him sprawling face first.

"I got you," Lance's voice came in clear, and the blue light of Lance's bayard warred with the purple of the sentry's blasters. Keith got up quickly and charged at the sentries closest to Lance, who was taking cover behind one of the Blue Lion's forelegs.

"Time to move," Lance said, moving out.

There were still sentries up, but they took up the formation they'd practiced earlier, with Keith taking up the front, his shield up and Lance edging around him to take shots at the remaining sentries, keeping themselves positioned so Lance had the best cover. Since he needed both arms for the rifle, he could only use the lower half of his own shield. They moved forward towards the tunnel and Keith severed one of the sentry's arms. Pidge had shown them how to use one to open locked doors.

They fought their way through the corridor and entered their target. There was a lot of equipment and one of them was the shield generator that they were supposed to blow up. In the middle of it all though was the large crystal powering the whole facility.

"We blow up the crystal," Keith said, grabbing the charge he was carrying on his belt he moved forward.

"Hold up," Lance said, pulling him back by his shoulder.

"We don't have time to figure out which one of these is the shield emitter," Keith said. "We need to get to Shiro and Hunk."

"This room isn't lined with anything," Lance said. He pointed to the walls and the ground. "That's the Balmera, right there. It's alive, and it's already dying. We can't just blow everything up without hurting it more."

He had such an earnest look on his face, and it was so much like him to worry about the Balmera, even at a time like that, but Keith didn't know any way around it. He had the urge to hug Lance, and comfort him for what they had to do, they just didn't have the time.

"Neither of us knows how to shut this stuff down," Keith said. "Lance, we have to…"

Lance wasn't listening though. He was eying all of the equipment. He pointed towards the conduits that all led to another room with a heavy metal door.

"I'd bet anything that's the control room," Lance said.

Keith nodded. He walked up and tried to open the door, Lance already positioned behind him. Nothing happened.

"We're locked out," Keith said. "Lance, we have to do this…"

Lance though was holding up his wrist to scan the door. He studied the holographic schematics that popped up.

"I think if I shoot there and there, we should be able to pry open the doors," he said. "It might take a bit."

Keith looked at where Lance was pointing. He put away his bayard and drew his dagger. Time to see if it really did cut through everything.

"Dude," Lance said when the blade slid through the metal roughly. "Where did you get that?"

"Never mind that," Keith said.

"Right," Lance said. "You're door man, I'm first through."

Keith frowned, but reminded himself that Lance had actually practiced that stuff at the Garrison. Keith put all of his weight into opening the door as quickly as possible so Lance wouldn't be left standing in the opening. Lance went through, Bayard already firing, and Keith followed immediately but it was already over. There were three dead Galra in the room, slumped over consoles. They walked quickly across adjacent walls to clear the room and make sure no one was crouched down waiting to strike.

"Hey Pidge," Lance said sounding a bit raw, Keith could see him staring at the dead Galran that was slumped right in front of him. "I'm in the control room. If I plug in- "

"Yes," Pidge said, a bit of a frantic note in her voice. "Just give me a second." They could hear the sounds of the battle on the other end."

* * *

Pidge wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline from the battle, or the first hit of caffeine she'd had in days, but she'd never felt more alive than she did as she forced her agile lion to do a backflip over the fighter that was following her. Or at least that was what she tried to do. She collided with it midair, her lion shaking violently as it exploded against her shield. No Hunk onboard to diagnose the alarms that flared up and Pidge didn't have an ounce of attention to give them. She shot around the edge of the castle's shields, forcing two fighters to climb higher.

The castle had followed them in, but it was much slower through the atmosphere, so it had taken a while for her to be able to use it as cover. There was too much worry for missed shots hurting the Balmera though, so she used the obstacle of the castle to draw out the fighters. Then she could swoop down so she could shoot upwards at the fighter, or the castle's own cannons could take a shot with the knowledge that any missed shots would fly out of the atmosphere.

The castle itself was taking heavy fire from the cannons around the rim of the chasm. They'd been too heavily shielded, and with the fighters, Pidge hadn't had time to blast through them.

"I need to disengage," Pidge said. "I can't hack their computers while I fight."

"Fly a loop around the castle," Allura said. "We'll keep you covered."

Pidge pulled up and turned her focus to the computer. It was easy enough to guide Lance through connecting his wrist computer to the control room and from there Pidge had access to everything. Pidge grinned down at the chaos below her.

She entered a single command and opened up a comm so everyone could hear her.

* * *

There'd been a moment of standstill in the beginning. Hunk had laid down suppressing fire causing the approaching platoon of sentries to hold back around a turn in the tunnel. For a while both sides shot at each other from what cover they could manage at opposite ends of the stretch.

Shiro patted Hunk's shoulder to make sure he was paying attention. "Controlled bursts," he said. "We need to be able to see them through the blasts."

Pressed up together as they were, Shiro could feel Hunk shaking as he tried to slow down his fire and bring it under some semblance of control.

"What do I do if they charge?" Hunk asked.

Shiro had to think about it. He'd had some basic training in personnel combat tactics, but that had been years ago at the Garrison, before he'd even left Earth for the first time. It definitely hadn't ever been his focus. He honestly didn't know what to do with a machine gunner.

"Sweeping fire," Shiro said. "Back and forth. But stay controlled. If you start shooting wild, you're going to have gaps in your coverage. You see that wall sconce?" He pointed at a light fixture on the tunnel wall. "If they get within five meters, stay down, behind your shield. I'll engage, that sconce is going to be your right limit. You need to give me room to operate."

"I don't know what I'm doing," Hunk said. He sounded tense, and his firing became more erratic.

They didn't see it coming, whatever it was, it fell nearby them and exploded. When Shiro's head cleared the sentries were charging down the tunnel. Hunk was firing wildly. Shiro tightened his grip on Hunk's shoulder.

"Sweeping fire, breathe Hunk, sweeping fire," Shiro said as the tension inside of himself built and built. His right arm started to glow, though he didn't remember consciously activating it.

They were getting close. Shiro kept his shield up in front of them but got his feet under himself.

"Remember the sconce, Hunk," Shiro said. He leapt to his feet and shield checked the first sentry that managed to get too close. Spinning in an arc his other arm sliced through the metal of its side. The whole corridor was chaos, but it was also too slow. Hunk's fire cut down most of the sentries, there was a pause after every sentry that got through and Shiro just barely managed to keep himself in check, kept himself within the section of corridor that Hunk was keeping clear of, resisting the urge to charge forward and tear every last sentry to shreds. Shiro's shield knocked a sentry's blaster to the side while his arm slid into its head when he realized that the yellow shots from Hunks Bayard had died out.

"Hunk!"

He turned and saw two sentries had piled on top of the Yellow Paladin. In the time it took him to stride forward and rip one off they were surrounded.

"Hold!" A Galra officer appeared at the end of the corridor. "Surrender, Paladins. Perhaps you will still live after the druids are done with you."

Shiro couldn't stop though, couldn't surrender, couldn't go back. He needed focus, but he didn't have any. The second sentry on top of Hunk had Hunk's arms pinned; Shiro took off its head.

"Take them," the Galra officer barked, but someone else's voice rang out over him.

"For the Life Giver!"

More voices picked it up, and suddenly several sentries at the end of the corridor got bulled over as a trio of Balmerans using a hover sled as a battering ram rushed in. Next thing the corridor was very cramped, with sentries wielding blasters and Balmerans wielding mining equipment.

"Kill them!" the Galra officer roared. "Kill all but the Paladins!"

It was going to be a slaughter.

"Shay!" Hunk called out, rushing into the fracas. Shiro followed. He knew it wasn't a battle they could win though. Already, the sentries were thinning out the Balmerans.

That was when each sentry stopped in its tracks simultaneously, and a loud voice echoed down the halls, called out from the speakers of each sentry, and came in over the comm in Shiro's helmet.

"All your base are belong to us!" It was Pidge. The battle was over.

* * *

A/N: So sorry this took so long. I was finishing up my degree and then I was traveling and I just got out of the habit of writing every day. I'm getting back into it now. Next chapter is about halfway written. I really hope you like all of this. In other news, I've got my Masters degree, I visited Chile to see the Eclipse, hiked to Half Dome in Yosemite, and then spent a couple weeks (with no air conditioning!) in San Antonio for work.

Story recs: if you're at all into Avatar the Last Air Bender I have to recommend everything ever written by MuffinLance. Oh, and I just watched Cartoon Network's Infinity Train and that was super good.


	5. In it to Win it

In it to Win it

* * *

Seeing all of his sentries fall, the Galran officer snarled and lunged at the closest Balmeran only to be flattened by Hunk who barreled into him. Shiro rushed forward as they grappled with one another, grabbing the Galran's wrist as he drew a dagger and severing it with his glowing prosthetic. Together they restrained him.

"Surrender!" Shiro ordered him.

"Victory or death!" the officer said, completely ignoring his missing hand.

"Yeah, dude, neither of those is an option right now," Hunk said. "You just lost and I'm not an executioner." He took a moment to catch his breath. Shiro himself was struggling to keep himself in control. Luckily, one of the Balmerans rushed up with rope, and they tied up the Galran Officer.

Shiro opened up the comm to the group. "Pidge, report," he said. There were injured Balmerans all around them and Shiro assumed there were some basics to first aid for most creatures throughout the galaxy. He started binding a slash wound with a ripped up strip of cloth. Hunk was trying to help someone with a blaster hole in their side.

"I've got control over all systems, Lance patched me in," Pidge said. "Turrets just took out the last of the fighters."

"Keith?"

"We couldn't figure out the shield generator so we took the control room," Keith said.

"Any injuries?"

"We're good," Keith said.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Rally on me. We've got injured Balmerans here."

"A lot of these people are going to need to be seen on the castle," Hunk said.

"We're landing," Princess Allura came in over the comm.

It was difficult organizing everything after the battle. It was hard to come down from the high of the battle. It didn't feel like the fighting should be over. Once the castle landed though, Princess Allura took over with the injured. A number of Balmerans were loaded up on the hover sled and transported to the castle while Shiro took Keith and Lance and a couple of Balmeran guides to sweep the facility for any remaining Galrans. All in all, the officer he and Hunk had taken down was the only one they managed to take prisoner.

* * *

The caffeine pill wore off too quickly, or maybe Pidge was just that tired. Pidge was mostly useless at first aid (that was a first year course), but she was able to follow directions like 'hold this here and apply pressure.' The Balmeran whose leg Pidge was leaning all of her weight on top of wasn't making much sense to her as he tried to explain how his people communicated with the Balmera, but she didn't expect he'd make much sense if she wasn't moments away from drifting off on her feet.

"Pidge, my dude," Lance said, walking by with a bundle of bandages in his arms. "Good work with the computers, you saved a lot of bacon today."

Pidge mumbled something at him. She wasn't a dude, and Lance was still… complicated.

"Princess!" Lance said eagerly. "Let me help you with that," he rushed off to help the princess carry whatever it was that she was probably perfectly capable of carrying on her own.

Her eyes drifted down to the wound she was holding shut, before jolting back up, away from the brownish green blood. It wasn't the purple of Haxus's blood but it was still blood, it was still on her hands.

"So, um, so tell me about the decline of crystal growth rates," Pidge said.

The Galra had definitely been tracking that, and she had all of their files, but it was something.

* * *

The Galrans onboard the disabled transport in orbit agreed to surrender, boarding a pod so their ship could be destroyed.

"This feels wrong," Hunk said, as the pod landed on the surface of the Balmera. They were delivering the officer they'd taken prisoner and the bodies of the dead so that all of the Galra could get out of dodge. The officer was heavily sedated. The Galrans onboard the transport ship might not have had the same fighting spirit, but Shiro didn't want the officer to order them to make a last ditch attack on the Balmera.

"We don't have the resources to take prisoners," Shiro said.

"This guy would be a war criminal on Earth," Hunk said. "The things he's done to the Balmerans…"

"The Balmerans don't want him," Shiro said. "We can't keep him. Do you want me to execute him?"

"No," Hunk said. "Of course not, but this still isn't right."

"Right or wrong it's what's left," Shiro said. "If you don't want to witness this you can go back. I've got this."

Rather, Keith hovering overhead in Red and Lance using the open mouth of Blue as a sniper's nest had this, while Pidge escorted the pod in Green.

"No," Hunk said. "I'm here until they're off this planet."

"You going to stick with us after that too?" Shiro asked his most reluctant paladin.

Hunk didn't say anything.

"Battle's different when it's in person," Shiro said. "When you watch your allies dropping around you."

"I keep imagining it was my family down there," Hunk said. "Unable to see the sun. I don't know why I was chosen; I don't know that I was really chosen, but I'm here."

"That's all I need to know," Shiro said. They were all there; all of them together, and Shiro wasn't fighting alone in an arena anymore. He just needed to figure out how to take care of these kids.

* * *

Lance kept reminding himself that everything was great. The Galra were gone, and that meant that they'd won. They'd won and Lance had been every bit the action hero he knew he'd be. He'd also definitely looked super cool while he'd sat perched in his sniper's nest. In action movies though, there wasn't much thought at the end to the bodies of the dead falling out of their chairs where they'd been alive just moments ago. Also, admittedly, unlike the movies, things weren't so quickly wrapped up after the victory, and the work still wasn't done.

"Okay, this piece is awkward," Lance said.

"Let me help," Gyeong said.

"Blue can totally lift this," Lance said defiantly. They'd been kicked out of the infirmary once the worst cases had been cared for and they'd become largely superfluous. Time was Voltron's worst enemy. Any moment they weren't fighting the war, was a moment the war wasn't being fought. So the plan was to get the Balmerans settled as quickly as possible and move on to the next thing. That meant one task done, another started, so there they were, clearing fighter debris from the floor of the great chasm.

Lance checked the scans before he set Blue to pick it up in her jaws before he groaned. "Actually, this piece might fall apart," he said. "You want to get the other side."

"Got it," Gyeong said.

They grabbed the big chunk of fighter and started flying it up to the surface.

"Well, what do you know, we really do make a good team," Lance joked.

"Really?" Gyeong asked, he sounded excited.

"Hah, um, in battle at least," Lance said. Cue Gyeong telling him he could have done the whole thing faster without Lance.

"That was smart with the control room," he said.

"What?" Lance asked.

"I wouldn't have thought of that," Gyeong said.

"Hah," Lance said. "So you admit it, I am good competition?"

"What?" Gyeong asked.

"You said there wasn't any competition for the princess," Lance said.

"You got angry when I said that," Gyeong said.

"'Cause I've got plenty of competition in me," Lance said.

Gyeong didn't say anything for a bit and Lance got excited, because he wasn't denying it. He knew, he knew that Lance was on his level. He wondered if he could get him to admit it. There would probably be a debriefing later. Could he get Gyeong to say something nice about him in front of the Princess? What if Shiro realized how much he'd contributed to the mission.

"Lance," Gyeong said. "That's not what I meant."

"No take backs," Lance said.

"I'm not good at this," Gyeong said.

"Oh my god, you're good at everything," Lance said, exasperated. It was annoying how awesome he was.

"I'm not good with people," Gyeong said. "I didn't mean it like that. I didn't know how to say it without…"

"Um," Lance said. "Well, you already said it. I saved the day."

"I know," Gyeong said. "I'm just… I'm not interested in the Princess so there's no competition."

"What?" Lance asked. "No way, how could you not be?"

"She's not my type?" Gyeong said.

"Um, she's incredible in every single way imaginable," Lance said. "How could she not be your type."

"Well she's not a guy," Gyeong said.

It took a moment for that to register. "Oh," Lance said, not sure how to respond to that.

"I'm gay," Keith said.

He'd always been taught that it wasn't anyone's place to judge others, and that everyone found God in their own way, had their own struggles, even non-catholics. He also didn't want to be like Tía Elena, passively sniping at Tío Mateo about his revolving door of girlfriends. Hunk's moms were great. Besides which, Lance didn't know what being gay even had to do with anything anymore. They were fighting in an intragalactic space war. The Balmerans worshiped a living planet. Whole planets, entire peoples, were being destroyed. In that moment, he couldn't fathom that god would really care that Keith was gay.

There'd been open silence on the comms for too long probably. "Okay," Lance said. "So, no competition for the Princess, but I'm the better pilot."

Gyeong sputtered.

* * *

"Shay," Hunk said. "I was hoping to see you. Um, we're going to take off soon."

Shay turned from the younger Balmeran she'd been working with. After organizing her people to attack the Galra, Shay had started getting them ready to move out, back to the surface where they had once lived.

"So soon?" Shay asked. "We have not had time to properly thank you. The Life Giver might last many years more now without the Galra, and my people also."

Hunk really wanted to stay, at least for a little bit.

"There's a lot more planets we've got to kick the Galra off of, I guess," Hunk said. "But actually, the princess wanted to do this alchemy thing to help the Balmera, you should be there. I could give you a ride to the surface."

Shay cried when they crested the chasm and she could see the sun overhead. Hunk held her hand as they walked down the ramp and watched her as the sun settled against her skin for the first time. She took a moment to feel it.

"You must be Shay," Allura said, walking up to them. "I've heard so much about you from your people and from Hunk."

Allura took over from there, so he sidled up next to Coran, who had already been cornered by a cranky looking Pidge.

"So how does this work?" Hunk asked.

"It's magic," Pidge grumbled out.

"Well it's quite simple, really," Coran said. "Princess Allura will act as a conduit between the Balmera and her people, allowing them to share their quintessence with the Balmera."

"They're already connected to the Balmera," Hunk pointed out.

"This is a bit more advanced than touch based telepathic communication," Coran said condescendingly. "This is alchemy."

"And it works by…"

"Ooh, it's starting," Coran said.

Shay and Myra held hands with Allura and beyond them a circle of ten more Balmerans.

"Thirteens a very important number," Coran said.

"How?" was Pidge's irate response.

Coran hushed him.

"Life Giver," Allura said. "You are the spark that runs through our veins, the hearth of my home, and unto you we return a part of the life, a part of the warmth."

A beat of silence, and then, "Ooh, it's working," Coran said. Everyone in the circle seemed to glow, and that light seemed to be drawn to the center where it seemed to settle into the ground. "It used to be we would do this ritual every time we asked a crystal of the Balmera, a way to keep it balanced. Absolutely beautiful," he said as it all started to fade away.

"Did it work?" Hunk asked, though he thought he already knew. The Balmera around them just seemed more alive. He saw Shay stumble a bit and he rushed forward. Allura was already helping to support Myra.

"Are you alright?" Hunk asked. Shay beamed up at him.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Everything. Everything is alright, I'm just tired, but my strength will return. Thank you, Hunk."

More Balmerans came to help those who had participated in the ceremony. So did Lance.

"That looked like it took a lot out of you Princess," he said. "Can I walk you back to the castle?"

"Actually, I'll ask Coran to walk me back," Allura said. "We need to discuss a couple of final matters before we take off."

"Right here, Princess," Coran said.

The two of them walked off.

* * *

The post mission debriefing was absolute torture for Pidge. It just kept going on and on, and Lance would nudge her every time she looked like she was falling asleep. One other thing helped her stay awake though. As Keith finished telling them about how he and Lance's part of the mission went, Pidge could tell it was obvious he had a thing for Lance. Why? And how had Pidge not seen it earlier. They'd done nothing but butt heads since as long as they'd all been together. She did not have the mental capacity to figure Keith out.

"Pidge," Shiro said. "What about those databanks?"

Pidge was suddenly put on the spot having spent the past bit being boggled by Keith. "Lots of data," Pidge said, getting her thoughts in order and trying not to sound like a toddler who never had her nap. "Shipment logs, I think they were supplying ship yards. Also there's enough in there to figure out the ship designation prefixes I think, so I'll have a much better idea of which sorts of ships are moving where based off of intercepted communications. There's more, but I'll have to scrub it a bit."

"Tomorrow," Shiro said. "Anything else to report?"

"Nope."

"Does anyone else have anything else to add?" Shiro asked. Thankfully the meeting was probably over. Pidge just wanted to crawl in bed.

"Keith did a flip," Lance said. "With his boosters. It was cool."

Pidge shot her eyes over to Lance. What?

"Alright," Shiro said. "Well, Paladins, you did an exceptionally good job today. Under the circumstances and under the time constraints, I couldn't have asked for more. I know its late, so we'll do reports tomorrow morning, but Coran, can you fix up some dinner for us while we hit the showers and then we can call it a night."

The showers. Pidge didn't want to deal with that.

"Of course," Coran said. "You paladins get cleaned up and I'll whip up a proper post battle feast."

"Actually," Pidge said. "I'm pretty beat. I'll just clean up in my room and hit the hay."

"Uh, uh," Lance said. "No skipping meals after battle, and no eating when you've still got alien blood on you."

Pidge's stomach soured. She looked at her hands. She glanced at the door that led out of the briefing room to the training area where the locker rooms were. She didn't want to deal with it, and she was done with the pretenses.

"I can't shower with you all, actually," she said. "I'm not a boy. I just pretended to be one for the Garrison. I'm really a girl."

Pidge might have imagined it, but the princess seemed to brighten up at her proclamation. Lance just looked skeptical.

"Did everyone not know that?" Keith asked, looking confused.

Pidge turned a surprise gaze on Keith, because out of everyone, he'd be the last person she'd expect to pick up on any sort of social cue. Was he being smug about it?

"Hold on," Lance said. "We shared a room, I think I would have noticed if you were a girl."

"I'm transgender, Lance," Pidge said, feeling her heart give a big thump as she said it, wondering how he would react.

"Oh," Lance said. "Um, cool, um, so yeah, um, cool, right, well, um, so there's a girls locker room isn't there? So we'll see you at dinner in a bit, okay?" His eyes were very wide.

"Okay," Pidge said. She really did just want to go to bed. She looked at the princess. "I don't know if that translated for you."

The princess smiled at her. "I think I understand," she said. "I'm glad I'm not the only girl in the castle."

Pidge grinned. "Us girls've got to stick together."

"We do," the princess said, nodding sagely.

"Pronouns?" Hunk asked.

"She, her, hers," Pidge said. "And, um, I'm still going by Pidge, for now." Pidge was going to find her family.

"I'm glad you felt you could tell us that," Shiro said. "You can come to me if you have any issues." Shiro didn't remember that he'd already known that she was a girl. He still didn't really remember her from before Kerberos.

"I'm gay," Keith said.

Pidge acted like she didn't already know that. Lance seemed like he'd already known, which was interesting. Then Shiro came out and Lance went absolutely bug-eyed.

"Right well, I'm going to get cleaned up," Pidge said and went and used the girls locker room.

* * *

Lance figured that Pidge was probably going to be the first one asleep that night, so he decided to start rounds with her.

"Hey, wait up," Lance said, catching up to Pidge in the hall.

Pidge looked at him warily.

"I'm just checking in," Lance said.

"You're not team lead anymore, Lance," Pidge said.

"Shiro's wearing too many hats," Lance said. "I think it's perfectly reasonable that we check in with each other so that Shiro doesn't have to deal with all of our issues while also managing a war." Also, he was always going to see Pidge and Hunk as a part of his team.

"Me being trans isn't an issue," Pidge said. "I'm doing just fine."

"Sure," Lance said. "How's everything else?"

"Its fine," Pidge said.

"I doubt that," Lance said.

"Lance-"

"Look, everything you've done is awesome," Lance said. "You infiltrated the Garrison, helped find the Blue Lion, hacked everything that's crossed your path, but that doesn't mean anyone expects you to just handle things on your own."

The gremlin growled at him.

"I heard about what happened with that Galra in the shield room," Lance said. "I, um, I shot some people today. If you need to talk about it-"

Pidge became, if anything, more closed off. "Well, I don't."

"Okay," Lance said. He wasn't sure how Pidge felt. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel either. "Well anyway. Get a good nights sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"Night," Pidge said.

* * *

A somewhat exhausted looking Lance was camped outside his room when Hunk got back from dinner.

"Find anything good on your tablet?" Hunk asked.

"There's a manual for the castle's turrets," Lance said, getting up to follow Hunk into his room, his tablet dangling in a loose grip at his side. "Honestly, so much stuff here seems to operate on the basis of intuition and thought."

"Lance proof?" Hunk asked.

"Hey," Lance said.

"At least you don't need to make a mockpit to figure everything out," Hunk said. "Here, gimme your phone."

"It's already dead," Lance said, pulling it out.

"I jury rigged an induction charger," Hunk said, taking Lance's phone and putting it on the pad he'd made so it could charge.

"Sweet," Lance said. "I mean, I figured you would, but there's, well, everything I have is on there."

"It'll be easy enough to get a data connector set up and then Pidge will handle the different operating systems eventually," Hunk said. "You'll be able to back everything up onto your tablet."

"I don't suppose the Alteans have headphones?" Lance asked.

"Well, they don't have bluetooth. We'll work it out," Hunk said. "We could probably just use Pidge's and make copies using the fabricator. Though there's a lot of things already queued up for the ship."

Lance shrugged. "So how are you doing?" he asked. "It looked like you were in a pretty crazy battle there."

That brought Hunk up short. "I'm here," Hunk said. "I guess I'm staying. I don't need you to pump me up or anything, but dude, I didn't know what I was doing down there. If Shiro hadn't been there…"

"Hey, you're not supposed to do any of this alone," Lance assured him.

"Still, Lance, it was a disaster," Hunk said. "I'm not a soldier."

"We'll work on it buddy," Lance said. "I'll get you up to speed."

"You're going to have your work cut out for you," Hunk said.

Lance grinned at him. "That's what got me here," he said. "But hey, other than that, you're doing okay?"

Hunk eyed Lance up and down, then got up and gave him a big hug. "You gave me a big scare there, you know." It was crazy how little time had passed since the ship's power crystal had exploded.

Lance laughed. "It's going to take more than that to get rid of Lance Sanchez."

Hunk could only hope. He didn't know what he'd do if he didn't at least have Lance with him in all of the craziness. He let go of Lance.

"So hey, it turns out Gyeong's just super awkward," Lance said.

This was not news to Hunk.

"I think we'll be able to work together," Lance said.

"Well you seemed to do well on your mission today," Hunk said.

"Right, yeah," Lance said. "I've still got to show him who the best Paladin is, though."

"You have fun with that," Hunk said. He wasn't sure if Lance was going to have a lot of fun with it or make himself miserable.

"Oh, I will," Lance said. "Alright, I'm guessing you're going to want to get some shuteye."

Hunk hadn't exactly slept the night before. "I'll see you in the morning, I'll bring your phone."

Lance left and Hunk stared at his bed for a moment. He was a worrier by nature, and he could only hope that he wouldn't lie awake for too long going over everything that had gone wrong, and everything that could go wrong in the future. He reminded himself, though, that his best friend was next door, and that he wasn't doing anything alone.

* * *

Lance had gone to Gyeong's room, but he hadn't been there. He considered that the guy was probably on the training deck, getting ready to one up Lance, but at that moment, Lance couldn't really muster up the energy to care. He shouldn't really be worrying about Gyeong anyway, he was already close to Shiro, so any issues he had would probably get taken care of. Though Shiro hadn't noticed that the guy had joined the team half-starved. Lance could still check in with him the following morning. He might not be Gyeong's team lead, but he could still make things easier on Shiro, who was managing a war.

Lance went to his room. It was weird having his own space again. He went through the motions of getting ready for bed, unable to really lose himself in the routine. Everything had just been so crazy since he had woken up from the healing pod. Since before the healing pod. He'd been blown up, he'd liberated a planet, Gyeong had acknowledged him; it felt weird to just go to bed after all of it, like it was any other night. He got into bed and stared at the ceiling.

Lance wished that he could look at his photos. His family had always supported him, and for a moment, he could forget the bravado and wish that they were there with him. Space hero Lance Sanchez wasn't supposed to need a hug from his mamá, but he was space hero Lance Sanchez, and he definitely wanted that hug. He wanted his father's hand on his shoulder and Camila hanging off his back with Rolando wrapped around his leg like a koala. He wanted to ask Tío Mateo if killing others during the war was what had left him with that often distant look in his eyes.

Lance had killed five Galrans that day. He wouldn't change it. He'd done what he'd had to. It had just happened so quickly. He'd walked through that door and there they'd been, and then they were gone, death coming as quickly as Lance could pull the trigger. It was exactly what he had trained for; it had gone as smoothly as any of the exercises he'd ever run at the Garrison. He'd trained for it. He'd thought it was cool. He'd even day dreamed about being in war, but he'd never really thought there would be one.

He remembered Tío Mateo telling him that if he'd been a girl his parents would have named him Paloma, for peace. There wasn't any peace though. The galaxy was overrun with violence and oppression and death. He knew pacifism wasn't going to stop the Galran Empire, any more than appeasement could have ever stopped the Nazis. The Galra needed to be stopped, and Lace was going to stop them. He would show everyone that he had what it took.

Still though, that didn't change the fact that he'd killed people. As the rush of the day's events left him, he felt wrong. They were aliens, but they were still people, God's people, just like the Balmerans, and the Alteans. It suddenly felt wrong how cheerful he'd been earlier. How he'd been so worried about looking cool in front of everyone. He thought about Pidge, who'd also killed someone just the day prior. He didn't want Pidge feeling bad. Pidge had just been surviving, fighting to let rescue in. Pidge needed someone to keep her spirits up, and Lance also needed to keep his own spirits up. He couldn't enter a perpetual state of mourning just because he was in a war. He didn't need Tío Mateo to tell him that he needed to keep living his life.

Maybe that was what everyone needed. Pidge and Hunk were spectacular at what they did. Shiro was just amazing. Gyeong was a natural born pilot. Maybe Lance was there to make sure no one lost themselves to the fight. Maybe the Lance that organized movie nights and snuck out of the Garrison was the Lance that fate had chosen. That God had chosen. Lance had the sudden realization that he had gotten into bed without praying and quickly threw off the covers to kneel by his bed, spooked that he had so completely ignored a part of his routine.

The Lord's Prayer was said by rote as he gathered his thoughts.

"So," Lance said. "I guess I almost died there. Thanks for, um, the quick recovery. I guess we were able to help the Balmerans because I got hurt, so that's cool."

Lance prayed for the Balmerans who had died, and for the Galra he had killed. He prayed for his family, that they were safe and not too terribly worried about him; he spared a thought once more to the idea that he could have died in that explosion and they would have never known. He prayed for his team.

"And I guess I'm most worried about Pidge with that Galra. I don't know how to help her with what happened, or if… if she needs help. I guess I'm asking for wisdom," Lance prayed. Thinking about Pidge really had him pausing in his prayer. He knew what position the church had on LGBT people, but Pidge was Pidge, and Shiro… he'd looked up to Shiro for years. He'd wanted to be Shiro for years and finding out that he was engaged to a guy and that he was asexual had thrown Lance for a loop.

"We were chosen," Lance said. "The Alteans said the universe chose us, but that's you. So you chose us. That means you chose Pidge and Keith and Shiro. Maybe you don't expect us to be perfect, but, I have to figure… I have to figure they are who you want them to be. Maybe…"

Lance didn't know how to tell God that the scripture really wasn't working with the universe around him.

"Well, they're my team, so that's that," Lance said. He waited for something.

"Well, um, amen," he said. He got back under the covers and went to sleep.

* * *

"Do I even want to know how much sleep you got last night?" Shiro asked.

"Enough," Keith said. He wasn't going to tell Shiro that he'd already been on the training deck for a couple of hours. Shiro was up about as early as he'd been the last time they'd met up on the training deck in the morning and Keith doubted he'd gotten anything approaching any sort of recommended amount of sleep.

Shiro set about getting the training robot started.

"We should fight it together," Keith said.

Shiro looked up at him in surprise. "Sounds good," he said, upping the difficulty level. "Ready?"

Keith nodded. They fought the robot together until Keith noticed that Shiro had suddenly become more violent. He interrupted the training protocol and stood off to the side, not sure what, if anything, he should say. He waited for Shiro to catch his breath.

"Movement drills," Shiro said.

Keith nodded and started the exercises the Garrison had drilled into them as a warmup for running. After that Shiro had the training deck modulate the outer rim and suddenly there was an obstacle course of sorts with hills and ledges and whatnot. They started running, until eventually an alarm went off letting them know that it was time for the rest of the castle to wake up. Shiro tapped on his comm.

"Rise and shine paladins," he said. "We will have a team meeting over breakfast in forty-five minutes." Closing the comm, Shiro turned to Keith. "I let everyone have a lie in this morning because of our recent ops-tempo, but from here on out I'd like you to lead a morning fitness routine. We'll keep it separate from combat training."

Keith scowled but nodded. It was at least a simple thing to lead, and he could always get his own training in before everyone else got up. They both headed to the locker room.

"You did really well yesterday," Shiro said. "It would have been a massacre down there if you hadn't gotten into the control room."

"That was Lance's idea," Keith said, pulling his hair out of its short pony tail and shucking his sweaty shirt into the locker that would somehow clean it by the time he got out of the showers.

"He's had some really good ones," Shiro said, nodding. "And it's a good leader that can take a good idea and turn it into a successful operation."

Keith didn't know how to tell Shiro that he wasn't the budding leader he clearly wanted him to be.

"I noticed you two seemed to be getting along better," Shiro said.

"He thinks we're competing for something," Keith said.

Keith would have never gotten into the showers back at the garrison without shower shoes, but they didn't have any on the ship, and he wondered if foot fungus just wasn't something you worried about on alien spaceships. He walked barefoot into the showers and told himself that it wasn't gross.

"Well as long as it's a friendly rivalry," Shiro said. "You could help bring out the best in him."

"You think I should antagonize him?" Keith asked.

"You should challenge him," Shiro said. "Just keep it low key; friendly."

Keith wasn't sure if that made sense and none of his past lives were making themselves known just then to give him a frame of reference. "And then he'll like me?" he asked.

"Well," Shiro said. "Maybe."

Keith didn't want to leave his future with Lance up to a maybe, but he didn't have any better ideas.

* * *

Pidge woke up to the sound of Shiro's voice over the ship's speakers. She felt… better. Not good, but better. She got up and shuffled over to her bathroom where she took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. Pidge looked back out at her. For a moment, Matt looked out at her.

"I'll find you today," she said. She picked her medication up off the counter. It was no longer hidden in her backpack, and she knew now that she'd easily be able to fabricate more for herself when she ran out. She chased the pill down with some water from the faucet and followed it up with a caffeine pill. She splashed some cold water on her face and went back to her room to throw on her only set of clothes; she wasn't ready yet to jump in on any of the Altean clothing.

She arrived to the kitchen to find utter chaos.

"They've got baking powder," Lance exclaimed when his eyes landed on Pidge.

"We haven't done a chemical analysis," Hunk corrected.

"So is that what's covering the kitchen?" Pidge asked.

"No that's flour," Lance said.

"Something approximating flour," Hunk said.

"We're making pancakes!" Lance exclaimed.

"Something like pancakes," Hunk said.

Pidge shrugged and got herself what passed for a glass of juice before she sat down at the table, setting up her laptop so she could start working on the data she'd pulled from the Galran computers on the Balmera. Knowing where the Galra had been sending power crystals gave them a much better picture of key areas of the empire. She hadn't gotten too much work done when Keith walked in and her new favorite soap opera started.

"Gyeong, hey," Lance said. "I hope you like alien pancakes."

Keith looked at him uncertainly, seemingly trying to think of something. "Oh, um, I wouldn't know?"

Lance nodded like this was a normal response.

"Well today you're going to find out," Lance said. "You're looking at the best griddle cook on this ship."

Keith looked constipated, but he still said, "Sure, but I'm the best pilot."

Pidge took a sip of her juice, waiting for an explosion that didn't happen.

"Oh, is that so?" Lance asked coyly. "Well you better fill up at breakfast, hotshot, you're going to need all the energy you can get to keep up with me today."

Unfortunately, the princess showed up at that moment and her soap opera turned into a lame twentieth century romcom where some doofus thinks he could sexually harass his way into a relationship. Pidge turned back to her laptop and tuned out Lance's suggestive flirting and Allura's artful dodging.

Everyone else arrived and soon the pancakes were done. They had a bit of a tough exterior, but they were fluffy on the inside, and the syrup Hunk had whipped up tasted a bit like charred lychee. Coran insisted that that they have a side of food goo to make up for whatever nutrients were severely lacking in the pancakes.

Shiro briefed them on the day ahead and after breakfast was over they split up. They all had action reports to write, and then individualized tasks. Pidge had her assignment to analyze the data. Lance took Hunk off to practice specific tactics that Shiro had laid out with his bayard. Keith, for some reason, was tasked by the princess to go through the Altean's ancient catalogues of known species throughout the galaxy and flag any he thought Voltron should attempt to make an alliance with. Shiro went off for a closed door meeting with Allura and Coran to discuss overarching war strategies.

Pidge went back to her room and made herself comfortable while she went through the data. With a better idea of which ship designation prefixes corresponded to which sort of ship, and by tracking where various sized power crystals were being sent, Pidge was able to combine the data she got on the Balmera to the castle's intercepted communications data and got a better idea of the structure of the Galran empire. Being able to separate out what she was certain were the warship classifiers, she was suddenly able to get a clear picture of the front lines of Galran expansion. Perhaps more importantly, she was able to identify what she thought were supply lines and shipyards that she input into her map of the galaxy.

There were several areas that were clearly sources of supplies but there was no indication of any of them being labor camps. Frustrated, Pidge sent off the data to Shiro and assigned herself the ongoing task of familiarizing herself with Altean and Galran coding and how to break it to her will. She lost herself in her work for a while.

"Food delivery for Gunderson," Lance's voice broke her out of her work and she looked up to the door. "Or shoot, you said you were going by Pidge but does that mean you're still going by Gunderson, or is it Holt now?"

"Come in, Lance," Pidge said. The door slid open and there was Lance with a casual smile and two bowls in his hands.

"Looks like someone forgot that food exists," Lance teased, and for a moment she could just imagine that it was Matt standing there, making sure she didn't forget basic things like eating. For a moment her heart ached before she pushed it away and reminded herself for the hundredth time that Lance wasn't some sort of substitute for Matt. Lance, though, just walked over and moved her laptop to the side so he could put a bowl down in front of her. Hopping up to sit on her desk and digging into his own bowl.

Pidge looked at her watch and realized it was a couple of hours after lunch. "Looks like I'm not the only one who skipped lunch."

Lance shrugged. "I had a project I wanted to work on, figured I should get it done before I get any more tasking. You've got a package next to your lion; first aid kit and emergency supplies stuff."

"Huh," Pidge wondered if Lance was going to return to his obsession with being prepared for emergencies.

"So Hunk's got the chemical makeups of different flavor compounds listed in his phone, so he figures we could start flavoring the food goo," Lance said conversationally once Pidge actually started eating the bland but inoffensive substance.

"Well, he'd better have chocolate in there," Pidge said.

"Pretty sure he has chocolate," Lance said.

He then proceeded to ask her all about what she was doing. So she told him, and he asked about the sneaky stuff she'd done at the Garrison, so she told him about that too, then somehow, he turned things around and before she realized what was going on she was telling him about crawling through the air ducts of the castle when Sendak had been holding him hostage.

She hadn't wanted to talk about it when Shiro had asked her how she was doing, and definitely not when Keith had awkwardly brought it up and then quickly dropped it before she could even say anything, but all of a sudden she found herself talking about a fight for her life that had been over before she could even think about it, about feeling helpless even in victory. She didn't break down or anything. It had been terrifying, and horrible, but she wasn't conflicted about it. Still though, it felt good to cry about it a bit. It felt good when Lance acknowledged what she'd gone through and given her a hug. It almost felt like getting a hug from Matt after a bad day at school. For once she didn't mind the comparison; she didn't feel like Lance was some imposter.

"I didn't find anything about their prison labor camps," Pidge said, knowing that Lance would say the right thing.

"We'll find them," Lance said confidently. "You're doing weird techno-magic with their computers, we've just got to find the right one."

"There's no such thing as magic," Pidge said.

"Oh, the Princess would disagree with you on that one," Lance said, and of course here the conversation completely derailed and he started waxing poetic about the Princess, talking about her like the both of them were characters in a movie. Lance was one of those guys who couldn't take a hint.

"Hey, um, I've got to get back to work here," Pidge said.

"Oh, right," Lance said. "I'd better get back to the training deck. If Gyeong thinks's he's going to out do me, he's got another thing coming. Don't forget, War Council before dinner tonight."

'War Council,' was a fancy way of saying that Shiro was going to go over their beginning vague strategies for bringing a galactic empire to its knees.

"See you," Pidge said.

Lance left, and a part of her wished that he hadn't. The thing was, that he felt like home, he felt like family; having him around felt like having Matt around, but she hated how he treated the princess. She didn't trust him. She'd finished the bowl of food goo an hour ago, and suddenly the caring gesture from Lance felt foul. She threw the bowl across the room, glad afterwards that it didn't shatter.

She just wanted Matt to be there. She wished it hadn't been Balmerans down on that planet. She wished that it had been aliens from all over. People torn from their homes and forced to work in a Galran mine. Matt could have been there. Dad could have been there.

Tears streaming down her face a lot faster than they had been when Lance had been hugging her, she thought of them down in some dark mine, a harsh Galran face that looked like Haxus standing over them. She thought of them cut down by sentries, like all of those Balmerans just the day before. Lance had said that they would find them, but who knew when, and who knew what condition they would be in. For just a moment she thought that she should be afraid of finding them, and for just a moment all she could think about was burning the empire to the ground.

* * *

"I got you," Lance crowed. "Admit it, I got you."

The lions didn't have a training mode like their bayards did, so they couldn't exactly shoot at one another, but the two of them had worked out an agreement whereby they'd assess whether or not one of them had gotten the other in a position where they'd have been able to get a hit in.

What would Lance's rival say? Keith wondered.

"I mean, if you can't say it, that's fine too," Lance said. "Your silence is speaking volumes."

It had been a good move on Lance's part, Keith just wasn't sure if he was supposed to say that. "I guess it's like you told me earlier, I didn't eat enough pancakes," he said. "After flying all evening I guess you'd have to catch up to me eventually."

"Oh, nuh uh, I got you fair and square," Lance said.

Keith wasn't sure what to say to that. "Oh?" he said, stalling.

"Yeah," Lance said. "And I'm about to do it again." Lance said, making a move.

Keith shot forward to give it some distance, but then Shiro came in over the comms.

"Time to come on in, Paladins. Meeting in twenty."

"Aw, you're getting off lucky," Lance said.

Keith didn't feel lucky, he wanted to keep going.

Keith opened up a private line.

"Shiro," Keith hissed, as if anyone else could be listening in. "What do I say now that we're done?"

"Challenge him for next time," Shiro said. "In a friendly way."

"Right," Keith said, opening a video link with Lance.

"Well, thanks for the target practice," Keith said, smiling deliberately. "Think you can give me a real challenge next time?"

Lance's eyes widened a moment and Keith thought for a moment that he'd fucked up, but then, "Oh, I'll give you a challenge," Lance said. "Just you wait. Next time you'd better watch your six."

Lance was smiling at him, and that was great, but Keith didn't know what to say next.

"Bye," Keith said, severing the link. He darted back over to the castle. He wished he could just talk to Lance like it was normal. This whole rival thing had him scratching his head. Lance at least seemed happy in the role and always seemed to know what to say.

They landed, their lions next to one another, and then they were walking back to the briefing room they'd been using. Keith wanted to reach out and take his hand. He could remember holding Lance's hand through several lifetimes. It was cruel that he couldn't in this one.

"Race you back," Lance suddenly said, taking off. That wasn't fair, Keith took off after him intent on beating him, but Lance kept looking back at him with a smile on his face, and Keith found himself keeping on Lance's heels.

They arrived at the briefing after everyone else, out of breath, and an ecstatic Lance telling everyone about how he had won. Keith would beat him next time, and there would be a next time, because Keith was Lance's rival. Lance wanted Keith to be his rival.

Shiro cleared his throat to get their attention, and Keith couldn't tell if he was exasperated with him or if he was amused.

"Well, it's been a long day," Shiro said. "I'm sure you all want to get to dinner, and we've got more to do afterwards besides, so I'll try to keep this brief. Though do ask any questions you might have.

"So to start off with, I want to solidify some basic roles. We'll work on coordinated combat when we're engaging with our lions, but when we need to have boots on the ground we'll have some more specialized positions.

"Pidge, you of course are our hacker, and so long as you can do that job from your lion, that's where you'll stay. If we ever need you to have boots on the ground it's going to be with either myself, Keith, or Lance as an escort. Outside of combat, your primary job is the same as it's been since we got here, I want you processing intelligence. You'll be briefing me, Princess Allura, and Coran regularly.

"Keith and Lance, the two of you are our primary strike team. Though we'll mix that up as needed; particularly if we're in a scenario where we can use Lance's skills as a sniper. I'm going to task Pidge to give you both basic lessons on how to patch her into different Galran computers, and Hunk's going to help you to recognize basic systems you might need to understand during a mission. Outside of missions, your primary jobs will be honing your skills in combat and you'll both likely be tasked from time to time to help with maintenance.

"Hunk, in combat, your primary job is to keep the enemy occupied and at bay but you're also our combat engineer. Lance is still in charge of your training with your bayard, but onboard the castle you and Coran are going to be keeping this ship in fighting form. Coran's going to be operating as our chief engineer.

"Princess Allura and Coran will be manning the castle during combat. Needless to say, our ability to make a quick retreat by wormhole is one of our biggest advantages. The Princess will also be acting as our chief diplomat, which brings me to the next part of the briefing: alliances. Voltron cannot stop the Galran Empire on its own. We might have the strongest weapon in the universe, but there's only one of us, and the Galra have the infrastructure to make this a very long war of attrition. We need allies, so we're going to form the Voltron Alliance, and we're going to lead the charge with whoever we can get at our backs, and that gets me to the last section of the briefing.

"Especially in the beginning, we're going to have to be extremely strategic with where we strike the empire and how. We got lucky with the Balmera. It's clear the Galra weren't expecting it to last much longer as a resource, it doesn't appear to be in a particularly strategic location, and it isn't close to any major outposts as far as we can tell. Chances are good that the Galra won't bother retaking it, so long as we're keeping them occupied. That means a fast ops tempo, spread out across the galaxy. For now, though there is only one Voltron, there isn't any one front in the war. We can't afford to let them concentrate on one area, so we keep them spread out. Our targets are either strategically valuable to the empire's war infrastructure, or strategically valuable to forming the Voltron Alliance. We can't afford to free every world we come across if they're just going to be retaken the moment we move on."

That was the point the general calm of the briefing broke.

"Wait," Hunk said. "You're saying we only help the people who can help us?"

"I'm saying that for now we need to make difficult choices," Shiro said. "We're not abandoning anyone. Our goal is to free everyone and destroy the empire. If we make strategic choices now, we can do all of that a lot faster."

"Stop saying strategic choices like you aren't talking about leaving slaves to rot in labor camps," Pidge said angrily.

"We can't just be heroes to some," Lance said. "We're supposed to save the whole galaxy."

"I'll say it again," Shiro said. "We got lucky on the Balmera. We got lucky and several Balmerans still died. How many more would die if the Galra came back to retake it? Again, there's only one Voltron. We can't sit around babysitting every planet we liberate. We make strategic decisions now so that we can liberate those planets in the future when we can make sure that we're not setting people up to be slaughtered. After the alliance is formed we'll be able to keep the Galra busy and we'll be able keep them out of territories we've freed.

"I know these decisions aren't easy to make, and I'm not asking you to make them, I'm just asking you to follow me. We all want the same thing. Follow me and we'll do as much good as we can for the galaxy, we'll keep the Galra away from Earth, and we'll challenge their hold on the Galaxy."

"What about my family?" Pidge asked.

"I told you we'd get them as soon as we could, and I meant it," Shiro said. "But keep in mind, we aren't equipped to take care of thousands if not millions of refugees. We're going to do this smart, and if that means a strategic extraction then that's what it'll be."

"This still feels wrong," Hunk said.

"I don't think war is supposed to feel right," Shiro said. "But I think ultimately, this is the right way to do this."

Keith had stayed silent during the conversation, but here Shiro looked at him. He had told the Princess that the war was hopeless, that they could only try to do the most good. He wasn't sure what that meant, but sitting there, he thought that he could put his faith in Shiro. He almost thought that he could have faith that something would actually come out of the fight, something more than just an opportunity to vent his rage at the Galra. He looked over at Lance. He already knew that Lance was staying.

"I'm in," Keith said firmly.

Lance caught him looking and stared back. "So am I," he said, as if he were accepting a challenge. "But Earth's a red line," he said, turning his head back to Shiro. "We don't make any 'strategic decisions' that leave Earth to the Galra."

"I think we can all agree to that," Shiro said.

"I'm in this for my family," Pidge said. "But I'm in."

"I'm in this till the end," Hunk said. "Though if we find a better Paladin, I could always just be your engineer."

"We won't find a Paladin better than you," Lance said. "We're going to do this guys, we're going to save the Galaxy. It's going to be legendary."

"Yeah," Pidge said. "Someday they'll tell the legend of the Cargo Pilot."

"Hey," Lance squawked.

That was the end of the meeting, Lance started joking around and after a while they started to relax as they made their way to dinner. Afterwards, they trained hard for a mission the following morning: an attack on a supply depot. It went well, and Keith and Lance counted off fighters as they picked them off. Their campaign had started, first by sowing chaos through the empire, attacking key infrastructure, never staying in one sector of the galaxy for long.

Lance joked one day that they were the Jason Voorhees of the Galran Empire. Hunk had had to explain the reference to him, but it sounded accurate. Nowhere was safe for the empire. Not when Voltron could pop out of a wormhole, destroy their target, and then disappear moments later, off to their next target in another sector of the galaxy. Every time they left they sent out a message. "Get ready for the Voltron Alliance."

It took a bit until there was actually any sort of alliance. A month in and they picked up their first ally, a somewhat advanced species that had been under siege by the Galra. It was a start. Keith still wasn't sure what it was a start to. At the end of the day though, he flew next to his soulmate, they fought back to back. At the end of the day, they were alive, and Lance might still be obsessed with the princess, but at least he and Keith were friends (Keith wasn't sure, but Shiro assured him Lance was his friend). They had each other for the moment, and Keith would make sure that moment lasted as long as he could make it.

* * *

A/N: Hey, and that's the end of part two. Next part I've been thinking about for a long time and I'm really excited to start writing it, it basically completely diverges from the plot of the show. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.


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